


Lars & Organa (Book 1: Beginnings)

by HiNerdsItsCat (HiLarpItsCat)



Series: Lars & Organa [1]
Category: Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Luke and Leia Switched, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 10:24:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 22,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13545399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HiLarpItsCat/pseuds/HiNerdsItsCat
Summary: It would only have taken one decision for things to have gone differently.For Luke to have grown up on Alderaan.For Leia to have grown up on Tatooine.So what I'm telling you is true... from a certain point of view.(Book 1 of 4)





	1. Womp Rat

Breathe. 

Just breathe. 

“Brace it against your shoulder.”

You can do anything if you’re calm enough.

“No, higher than that.”

So just breathe.

“Plant your feet.”

“My feet  _ are _ planted.”

“No they’re not.”

“You’re just imitating Huff.”   


“So?”

“So shut up and let me concentrate.”

Breathe in. Breathe out.

And then squeeze the trigger. 

As it turned out, her feet weren’t quite right. The knockback of the bowcaster sent her flying back almost two meters. 

“Told you so,” said Biggs, offering a hand to help her up.

She waved it away. “Did I hit it?”

“Not a chance.”

“You sure? You looked?” Biggs didn’t answer. She narrowed her eyes. “You didn’t look.”  

“You guys,” Tank called, still looking through his macrobinoculars. 

“What?” Biggs replied, rushing over and grabbing the specs. “I can’t believe it.” He passed them to her as she joined both boys at the canyon’s edge. 

25 meters away, on a ledge partway down the sandstone walls of Beggar’s Canyon, a womp rat lay dead with a bowcaster bolt between its eyes. 

The source of that bolt, Leia Lars, smiled and said nothing. 

* * *

“You should have seen it, Fix,” Tank said, nearly knocking Fixer over with the force of his enthusiastic shove. “Zap! Right between the eyes!”

“Her first time,” added Biggs, giving Leia a half-hearted shove himself. 

“Quit iiiit,” she said, with an overly dramatic whine. Camie picked up on Leia’s imitation of her and moved as if to say something, but was cut off by Fixer’s skeptical scoff:

“No way you could have fired it. Humans can’t even lift a Wookiee bowcaster.”

“We propped it up on a rock. All I had to do was aim,” Leia said. 

“Bet you couldn’t do it again.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” In her experience, it was best to play these things off like it was no big deal, even when it was. If you started swapping boasts with Fixer or Biggs, before you knew it you’d be trying to rappel down a canyon wall without your shoes to prove some crazy point or other. And then, of course, you’d have to decide if you really wanted to win or not. 

Leia won a lot. She didn’t know why, but the more harebrained the scheme, the better she would do. Nothing seemed to scare her, not really. What was a little danger compared with the dark well of knowledge sitting in the back of her mind? 

Don’t think about that. Just breathe. 

She didn’t know when it started, that strategy. A bad dream in the night? One of the times they had to lock the farm down and hide in their home until after the Tusken Raiders had finished going by? She remembered a voice, a strange yet familiar one, murmuring in her ear: just breathe. 

They dragged the repulsor sled up to Demak’s stand; he was known to give good prices for womp rat bounties. 

“You scavenge this?” he asked raising what passed for eyebrows in his species.

“Shot it ourselves,” Biggs said, offended. “Look at the bolt mark.”

“Sure, sure,” Demak said, laughing, waving him away. He barely looked at the rat. “Five credits.” 

“The Imps give ten,” Leia said. 

“Well, I’m not the Imps, am I? Five credits is all you’re going to get,” he said, still amused but growing less amused by the second. 

“The Imps give ten,” she repeated.

“Then go to the Imps, why don’t you? Then maybe you can tell  _ them  _ how you shot it yourself, eh?” His eyebrows pulled together. “And maybe tell them how a group of little ones got hold of a heavy-class blaster.”

“Nine, then,” Biggs tried, but Leia put out her arm to quiet him.

“Ten credits,” she said firmly. 

“Not a chance,” Demak said. “Be lucky you’re getting five.”

Something spiked in her, but she quieted it. 

Just breathe. 

“Ten credits,” she said slowly. 

Demak blew out a sigh. “Fine. Ten credits. Here.” He handed her the chits. “Now get out of here.”

She and Biggs brought up the rear. Neither of them spoke for some time.

Quietly, out of range of the others, Biggs said it. “You did it again, didn’t you.” 

“Yeah,” she said, not looking at him.

“How?”

“Don’t know.”

“It’s bad luck,” he said after a minute. “Huff says people who did that stuff got taken away by the Imps.”

“I know.”

“People say they don’t come back. Not even their bodies.”

“I  _ know, _ Biggs.”

“You know I won’t say anything, right?”

“Better not,” she said, staring straight at him with a grim expression. Then they both started laughing. 

“What so funny back there?” asked Tank. 

“Nothing,” Leia said. She hurried to catch up, leaving Biggs with the sled. “Hey, Camie,” she said. The girl was somehow snuggling with Fixer and walking at the same time, which Leia didn’t even think was possible without one of them tripping over the other. 

Camie wriggled out from under Fixer’s arm. “What?” she said. And then said it again as Leia shoved the ten credits into her hand.

“Put it towards parts for the T-16,” Leia said. 

“Why can’t we split it?” Tank asked. 

“Because I’m the one who shot it and I get to decide,” she replied. 

“I brought the specs we used to find the rat and Biggs snuck the caster out of Huff’s stash,” he protested. “So we should get a cut.” Tank glanced at Camie and Fixer. “Sorry, guys.”

“Camie finishing the skyhopper is good for all of us,” Leia said. “We’d finally have something we could fly.”

“Yeah, but one at a time,” said Fixer. “It doesn’t fit passengers.”

“So we take turns for now,” Leia said. Then an idea occurred to her. “Hey, if Camie can put a small cannon on this thing, we could probably bullseye more of those womp rats and collect the bounties. Then we could afford more hoppers.”

“Then we could race!” Biggs broke in, excited. 

The others nodded. As usual, Leia got her way. 


	2. Silver

Luke always knew he was special.

Not just because he was a Prince of Alderaan, scion of the House of Organa, and his parent’s only child. Luke knew he was special because of how often he was _bored._

“You’re fourteen,” Breha said skeptically. “You can amuse yourself; you don’t need me to make up activities for you.”

“I know,” he said petulantly. “It’s just…”

“What?”

But he didn’t know what to say. It was just… everything came so easily to him. Whatever he wanted, he got. Attention? Whenever he wanted it. A day out? Done. More hobbies, more supplies, more attention? Just ask. He had recently started arguing with whoever happened to be nearby, just for the diversion, and within minutes they would be agreeing with him.

It wasn’t that he was smart; it had occurred to him that it probably was because he was the Prince and so his opponents (or so he called them) were inclined to flatter him by letting him have his way.

“He’s driving people crazy,” he once overheard his father saying.

“He’s a teenager,” his mother countered. “That’s how they act.”

“He’s kind of a brat.”

“As I said,” Breha replied patiently, “teenagers.”

Luke knew he wasn’t like other teenagers, though. Other teenagers knew what they wanted. Other teenagers were working towards some _goal_ , some _accomplishment_. Other teenagers were being challenged. No one ever challenged Luke.

Or, if they did, they didn’t challenge him for long. He could see the moment when he’d win: their shoulders would relax just a little, they’d blink once or twice, and then they’d concede his point. Even if his point was completely crazy.

Just once, he wanted to lose an argument.

* * *

Fortunately for him, that’s exactly when Winter came along.

She was special too but, much to Luke’s exasperation, was special in a way she could actually describe: “I have absolutely perfect recall,” she told him when they first met. “A perfect memory.”

“That can’t possibly be true,” he said.

“Try me,” she said. She pointed at the datapad sitting nearby. “Type out a string of numbers.”

He punched a dozen or so digits out. “Longer,” she said. He typed a few dozen more. “Longer than that.” Finally, he had nearly a hundred digits typed in.

“Now hand it to me.” He did as she asked and, after about ten seconds, she handed it back.

“Get ready,” she warned, took a deep breath, and began: “Five three three seven six seven one three six zero five zero three eight eight eight six seven zero one eight five four five four…”

She read all of the digits correctly, and then coughed lightly into her hand. “I’m going to need a drink after all that.”

“Come on,” Luke said. “I know where my father keeps the good stuff.”

“I didn’t mean liquor, Luke.”

“So? A drink’s a drink.” He tried sounding nonchalant but felt himself coming off as slightly desperate to impress.

“I don’t want to,” she said firmly.

“But--”

“Water will be fine. Or tea.”

And for the briefest of seconds, he wanted to keep pushing. He knew, deep down, that he could probably make her do what he wanted and that it had nothing to do with being a Prince.  He knew, deep down, that whatever made him special also made him able to do this. There was a part of him that always got what it wanted and didn’t care if it was wrong or unwanted, and that this part reared what he now realized was its very ugly head.

This wasn’t him.

But it was.

But he didn’t want it to be.

“Okay,” he said slowly and carefully. He was afraid that by saying the wrong word or saying it in the wrong way, he would shatter everything around him. He had never felt that way before.

He felt, for the first time he could remember, genuinely afraid.

Luke always knew he was special, but this was the first time he realized that it might not be a good thing.

“Come on,” he said, trying to shake off that feeling of dread. He couldn’t exactly go into an existential spiral with Winter standing right there. He’d think about it later, when he was alone and trying to fight off boredom again. “The kitchen’s this way.”

“You make your own tea?” she said in mock astonishment.

“It’s practically a cult movement in my family,” he said. “Serious business.”

“A cult of personali-tea?”

“That’s it, you’re getting water instead.”

Their laughter echoed down the halls.

* * *

“So,” Winter said, after taking her first of the spicy tea that was the Organa household’s special blend. Her silver hair fell in wisps down the side of her face, one lock coming dangerously close to falling into the mug.

“So,” he echoed from across the kitchen table.

“What was that back there?”

“What was what?”

“You seemed to have a mini panic attack. Everything okay?”

Luke frowned. “I don’t know. Just… some thoughts.”

“Was it the booze thing?”

“Not… not really, I guess? I don’t know, it’s like… I’ve always gotten my way in stuff. And I didn’t know how to handle being told no. And there was this moment where I wanted to argue with you and _win_ and it scared me because it wasn’t even about what I wanted you to agree to but just because I wanted to win like I always do.” It was all coming out in a rush, which was embarrassing but also kind of a relief.

“Yeah, I kind of noticed the entitlement thing.”

“I don’t even _like_ drinking. Either my father’s taste is awful or mine is, because it all tastes like ozone smells.”

“I had some wine at my brother’s wedding.” She shrugged. “It was okay.”

“I don’t want you to think I’m a jerk.”

“You haven’t been one so far. Do you think you’re a jerk?”

“Maybe. My father says I’m a brat.”

“Lots of people are brats when they’re never told no.”

“I guess so,” he said, running a hand through his sand-colored hair.

“Tell you what,” Winter said, setting her mug on the table, “You want to convince me you’re a jerk? I’ll let you win that argument. But otherwise…”

“Otherwise, take it easy on myself?” he said with a smile.

“No,” she said, growing serious. “Don’t do that. Watch yourself, make sure you’re doing the right thing. Because there’s no one else out there who’s going to call you out.”

“Except you, I bet.”

“I’m not going to do your dirty work for you, your highness. Look,” she said, brushing her hair out of her face with both hands, “everyone has enough work to do already, keeping themselves on the right path. No one’s going to do that for you, ever. Trust me.”

“I do trust you,” he said.

“Good,” she said brightly, and took another sip of tea. “This is really good.”

“It’s even more amazing when you’re sick.”

“Okay...”

“I mean it!” Luke said, laughing. “It’s like taking a stun bolt to your sinuses.”

“Gross.”

“Seriously.”

“How do you even know what a stun bolt to the sinuses feels like?”

“My father is _really_ strict about curfew.”

“You are definitely lying right now.”

“I definitely am.”

They sipped their tea in comfortable silence. Then Luke asked:

“Why are you here?”

“My parents are here for a meeting of some foundation or other. I’m just along for the ride. Plus, I think they wanted me to socialize with people my own age or something.”

“How old are you?”

“I just turned fifteen. You?”

“I’ll be fifteen in a few months.” He frowned. “So this is our parents’ attempt at curing us of our perpetual loneliness?”

“Do you think it’s working?”

Luke looked down into his tea for a minute, and then smiled. “You know… I think it might be.”

“Good. I could use a friend.”

“I don’t really know anything about you,” he pointed out.

“Well, that’s your project for the next time I come over. I already know a bunch about you.”

“Oh yeah?”

Winter used the voice that Luke would later recognize as her Perfect Memory Recitation voice. “ Luke Organa, born 16:5:24; currently fourteen years, five months, and twenty-eight days--”

“Hey, you already knew how old I was when you asked!”

“--I prefer to show off in large dramatic gestures. Ahem. Currently fourteen years, five months, and twenty-eight days old. Blood type: A negative. Enjoys flying, hiking, and being a complete brat--”

“--hey!”

“Holds the current continental record for hours logged in a swoop racer. Attended Royal Academy until age 12, now tutored privately. Adopted son of Bail and Breha Organa--”

“Wait, _what_?”

“What?”

“I’m adopted?”

She looked at him, mouth slightly open. “Wait,” she said. “You really didn’t know?” The look on his face must have been an answer. “I mean, you share almost none of the same features-- you never suspected?”

“No.”

“It’s no big deal, really,” she said, trying to reassure him. “Adoptions are really common in Alderaanian royal families; you know that, right?”

“Right. I just…” He realized he was looking down at his shoes. He looked back up at Winter. “I think there might be something weird about me. Maybe it’s something I inherited. Or maybe not. But… there might be an explanation, right?”

“There might be.”

“Will you help me?”

She nodded.

“Thanks.”


	3. Collision

“Check the thrusters again.” 

“I swear I got it right last time,” Camie said, frowning and reaching for another roll of microsolder in her toolbelt. She pushed up the sleeves of her robe for what seemed like the millionth time, in Leia’s reckoning, and began to painstakingly recheck the circuitry. The robes were fairly standard garb on Tatooine and good at keeping human skin from burning, but the sleeves did tend to be a nuisance if you were trying to do anything that required reaching into small spaces. Leia, for her part, had already shed hers and opted for more close-fitting fabric, though it make her sweat uncomfortably. 

“All I know is that halfway through my dive last run, they cut out on me for almost a whole ten seconds,” Biggs said, with mounting frustration. 

“Yeah, but without that, you wouldn’t have pulled off that sweet rebound off the canyon wall,” Tank pointed out. 

“Sure, but that doesn’t mean I want to do it  _ again _ .”

“Bet Leia could do it,” Tank said, giving her a sideways look. 

“Maybe. Maybe not,” she said. “But we’ve only got two hoppers and I’d rather go shooting than try stunt piloting.” 

“Ugh,” Biggs groaned. “That’s all we do these days.”

“Yeah, so? Bagging rats gets us credits, and credits get us parts for new hoppers,” Leia shot back. “Imagine each of us having one of our own. We could go anywhere.”

“Yeah, well until then, I’m bored. I rarely hit anything anyway,” Biggs admitted. “You earn most of the kills, Leia.” 

“Every bit helps,” Leia said, but knew it was true. She was the only one of the gang who actually enjoyed the hunting, too. “Maybe after we get another hopper or two we can start doing courier work or something. It would pay better.”

Camie finally lifted her head out of the circuitry compartment. “Meanwhile, I’m stuck building and fixing everything. Why don’t you let up for a second, Leia?”

“Hey,” said Fixer, slightly wounded, “I help too.”

Camie turned on him, irritated. “Your name may be Fixer, but your soldering is bantha poodoo. I just had to redo four welds in a section you worked on. It never  _ ends  _ and I’m  _ tired _ .” 

“It’s all going to be worth it, Camie,” Leia tried to reassure her. “I promise.”

“What’s it going to be worth to me? I never even get to fly the things I build.”

“You never  _ want _ to!”

“Oh yeah? Well, how about now? I’ll even fly this one,” she said, slamming the compartment shut with a little more force than necessary, “since you’re all so confident in my work, apparently.”

“Fine, then,” said Leia. “I’ll take the other one. Check the comms when you’re inside.”

“You sure about this?” Fixer asked, though it wasn’t clear which girl he was asking. 

“I’ll be  _ fine _ ,” Camie growled, climbing up into the cockpit. 

When Leia had done the same, she clicked on her comm. “You okay, Cam?”

“Let’s just get this over with,” Camie said. Leia noticed the beginnings of anxiety in her voice. 

“We’ll do a run through the Boonta Pass. Nothing too crazy.” 

“Stop treating me like a stupid kid, Leia. I’ve flown before.” Leia looked out at Camie’s hopper and watched the repulsors kick on. She flipped the switch to start her own up, and retracted the landing gear. 

“Yeah, but not in the Canyon. And you’re not some stupid kid, okay?” She gave an exhale of frustration. “Look, you’re a whiz at building. I’m sorry we’ve been bad about recognizing the work you’re doing.” An idea occurred to her: “Hey, you should be able to keep a cut of the bounties we’re bringing in. Compensation for your work, right? Mechanics charge for parts  _ and _ labor, after all.”

“Yeah, but won’t it take longer to get the hopper parts if I’m keeping some of the credits?”

“So? I’ll pull extra shifts bounty hunting. I’ll clear all the womp rats out of Beggar’s Canyon if I have to.” She flipped another switch and felt the hum of the thrusters; she was relieved to see Camie’s thrusters working too. 

“Why?”

“Why what?” Leia asked as they started their run towards the Canyon. 

“Why is this such a  _ thing _ for you?”

“Because… because it’s… I don’t know, something that’s  _ mine _ , you know? Not the skyhopper itself, but where it can take me. I want to see more stuff. Like, imagine being able to go to Mos Eisley instead of trudging down to Tosche Station any time we’re bored.”

“Ugh, no thank you. I’ve heard plenty about Mos Eisley, thank you.”

“Come on, it can’t be  _ that _ bad.” 

“Says you. Nothing’s ever “that bad” when it’s you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Leia increased her speed a little as they neared the canyon floor. The sandstone walls rose up for hundreds of meters above them; even in such a vast space (especially Boonta Pass) it occasionally felt claustrophobic, as though at any moment the walls could press in upon them like a trash compactor. 

“I mean, you don’t care if something’s a completely crazy idea. Mos Eisley is  _ dangerous _ . Even my father won’t go there without a group, and he’s stared down Tusken Raiders.” Camie was always going on about the time that Galen fended off a small raiding party of Raiders trying to make off with some of the bantha herd. 

“So we go as a group too.”

“Not me, Leia.”

“Okay, fine. Not you.”

“It’s like nothing around here is ever good enough for you. Even us.”

“That’s not true. Slow down a little, there’s a sharp turn coming up.”

“Fine, I’m slowing down. But it  _ is _ true.”

“Because I don’t want to be a moisture farmer?” Leia demanded. She felt the pull of the hopper making the turn; she wasn’t a sky jockey like Biggs but she did get a thrill out of that part.

“Well, yeah! Owen and Beru are good at it. And we all know you’re clever; you’d probably be even better at it.” She heard Camie sigh. “Face it, Leia, none of us are going anywhere. I’m probably going to marry Fix and you’re probably going to marry Biggs and we’re all going to settle down and be farmers for the rest of our lives and that’s  _ fine. _ Not everyone’s life is a holodrama, you know?”

“I’m not trying to live like I’m in a drama, Camie. I just… want more than I’ve got.” She made a face. “Also, ugh, marrying Biggs?”

Camie laughed; it was a good sound, like windchimes. 

“Next few clicks are going to be pretty gentle, by the way.”

Camie’s laughter stopped suddenly. “Um… Leia? I think my thrusters just started sputtering.”

“Pull up. Now!”

With shuddering fits and starts, Camie’s hopper started to rise. If she could get up to the surface, she could just fly back on repulsorlift, but if she couldn’t, she’d be trapped at the bottom of the canyon. 

“It’s going!” Camie said, starting to panic. Leia could see that her thrusters had gone completely out.

“Hang on, I’m coming.” Leia turned up her own thrusters. “This is probably going to be an awful idea, but it’ll get you up to the surface at least.”

“What are you doing?”

“Giving you more things to repair, sorry.” Leia got herself into position, and then pulled up as hard as she could. “Turn up your repulsors as high as they’ll go.”

Just breathe, she told herself. 

She was coming up fast. Hopefully she wouldn’t hit it with the cockpit; she wasn’t sure the canopy glass would hold. 

Just breathe. You can do it.

At the last second, right before she collided with the underside of Camie’s hopper, Leia pulled a hard left, followed by a hard right. Her gamble had paid off: the force of her impact with Camie’s repulsors slammed the hopper up and to the right, sending it up and out of the canyon. 

The repulsors weren’t quite strong enough, though: she heard the crunch of her top wing colliding with the underside of Camie’s skyhopper. 

“What was that?” Camie cried.

“Don’t worry about that right now,” Leia said. “Just land it. Gentle as you can.” 

With the stabilizing wing askew, Leia’s attention had to turn fully to trying to land her own hopper without going into a tailspin. It felt a bit like trying to walk on a narrow, slightly unstable fence. 

At last, she got it down and even managed to get it within half a click of Camie’s ship, which had skirted a bit closer to the hills nearby, but had fortunately not skidded up against the side of them. Good; the hopper was still salvageable. 

Leia’s heart sank, however, as she neared the ship and saw the gashes on the ground in the ship’s wake. 

Camie confirmed her fears: “Repulsor coils are completely wrecked. I don’t even think we can tow this back to Anchorhead.” Her eyes widened. “What are we going to do?”

Leia gestured back at her own hopper: “Do you think you could straighten out the top wing?”

“I’d have to look, but probably enough that it’ll fly on repulsorlifts without tipping. But…” she looked back at her own wrecked hopper. “We can’t both squeeze into your cockpit. How am I going to get back?”

“You’re getting back in my hopper. Go to the nearest farm and get a speeder to come get me.” They started walking towards Leia’s ship. 

“But what are you going to do?”

“After I help you fix the wing, I’ll hide up in the hills there. I can see a cave near the edge. That way I’ll be out of the sun and high enough to see you coming.”

“Leia, this is the Jundland Wastes. Raiders live out here.”

“Well, hopefully I’ll see them coming too. Probably the worst that will happen is some Jawas come by and scavenge the ship. We’ll probably be buying back the parts from it within a few weeks.”

* * *

She was right about the Jawas, at least. It was almost impressive how much of the ship the little guys were able to take apart in such a short time. 

It was still hard to watch, though. 

The heat of midday began to make her drowsy. Fortunately, every resident of Tatooine (the human ones, at least) made it standard practice to carry a canteen wherever they went, so she wasn’t going to die of thirst, but she wished she had brought her robe along. 

She had closed her eyes when she heard footsteps. Bipedal. 

Raiders. 

Rather than get cornered in a cave, she chose an equally risky tactic and decided to keep moving. Even at 14, she was fairly small and could probably slip through the rocks without being seen. Probably. 

Just breathe. It’s going to be fine.

She had been moving for about five minutes when she heard the yell in the Raiders’ honking language. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so terrifying. 

Leia started to run, growing further from the edge of the hills as she went. She prayed to whatever higher power was out there that they were as unfamiliar with the hills as she was. 

At last, she heard their shouting recede… only to be replaced by another noise. 

She had heard a krayt dragon only once before, but knew what it was.

She needed to get out of sight, quickly. The dragons were purportedly daylight hunters; their eyes were well adapted for hunting under the bright twin suns of Tatooine, but they had trouble finding prey in the shadows. 

If only she could get back to that cave. She scrambled through the rocks of the hills, growing increasingly lost. 

At last, she found an opening. Strangely, it was carved into a neat archway with surprisingly clean edges. And a door. She barely had time to notice it before flinging herself inside. 

It only then hit her that she was in someone’s living quarters.

Nothing fancy: a bed, a table, the apparatus for a moisture collector, and a small trunk. 

But no resident. 

Very little dust had gotten inside, so whoever the person who lived here was, they must have just stepped out. Hopefully they hadn’t been nabbed by the Sandpeople she had just evaded. 

The deep well in the back of her mind stirred and she found herself walking over to the trunk. Something about it seemed important. 

Stop that, she told herself. You’re not some Jawa scavenger. But she kept moving towards it. 

She was on her knees in front of it when she heard voices from the outside. 

Human voices. 

She ran outside and hollered “Hello?”

“Leia!” It was Uncle Owen. 

“I’m up here!” she called. “Come see this!”

Owen reached the spot she was calling from, breathing a little heavily from the exertion of running. He was a fit man from years of farming, but moving fast was not his strong suit. 

“Leia, how could you--” He suddenly stopped short and his face paled. Then he turned to her urgently. “Come along. We’re done here.” He grabbed her by the arm and began guiding her firmly down the slopes of the hills to where the landspeeder was waiting.

“But Uncle Owen, someone lives up here!”

“Never mind that, we’re going home. And don’t think you’re not going to be punished for the stunt you pulled.” He gave a growl of frustration. “Flying in Beggar’s Canyon? Are you insane?”

“But--”

“No. We’re not talking about this until we get home.”

“Do you know who lives there?” Leia demanded.

“I said we’re not talking about this. Now move.”

He knew who it was, Leia was sure of it. But who would live up in the hills of the Wastes?


	4. Archives

“And what are you trying to do, exactly?” Bail asked skeptically. 

“Genealogical research,” Luke said. 

“Whose genealogy?”

“Winter’s. Her father’s maternal line spent a few centuries on Coruscant and she wants to find out more about them.” He and Winter had arranged that as cover; it was actually true, although Winter’s family actually had an official genealogist to keep track of that sort of thing. 

“It’s actually pretty common among most Alderaanian noble families to employ one; lineage is kind of a  _ thing, _ ” she remarked over the holovid. 

“I guess we’re not a typical Alderaanian noble family,” Luke mused. 

“I just don’t get why your parents never told you,” Winter said. “Like, I said, it’s a common situation. Breha’s mother was adopted, in fact.”

“Was she? I didn’t know that either.”

“That’s why genealogists are so popular around here, incidentally; tracing family lines is occasionally complicated if you’re dealing with two sets of parents,” she said.

“Does it matter who the birth parents were?”

“Not really, to be honest. We’re not Naboo or anything-- nobody’s snobby about bloodlines the way they are. Have you ever been there, by the way? It’s gorgeous.”

“No, sorry,” Luke said. “Travel’s pretty much the only thing I don’t get my way on. My father goes back and forth to Coruscant all the time but I’m stuck here.”

“Travel isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” Winter said. “Mostly you’re stuck in an in-between space. Hyperspace is interesting to watch for about ten seconds and then it's twelve boring hours of playing hologames and reading.”

“But you’ve been to Naboo.” 

“I’ve been to lots of places.”

“And you remember them all.”

“The good and the bad,” she reminded him. “I’m lucky to be so coddled; I haven’t ever seen anything  _ really  _ bad; if I ever do, it’s going to be stuck with me forever like it just happened.”

Luke shuddered. 

“Anyway,” Winter said lightly, bringing the conversation back on track, “Imperial Senators have access to parts of the Imperial Archives that most people don’t have. They keep the best records on everyone in the Core Worlds. Though if your family is from Jakku or something, you might be out of luck.”

“I don’t mind warm weather. Maybe I  _ am _ from Jakku _ , _ ” he snarked. “My family are Sandpeople.”

“That’s Tatooine.” 

“Fine, Tatooine. So I ask my father for access. How do I keep him from looking over our shoulders the whole time?”

“He’s a  _ Senator _ . How much free time does he even have?”

“He honestly seems to be everywhere I go these days. I feel like I’m being stalked really ineffectively.”

“Okay well, you could always… I mean. Um.” She looked away. “You know.”

“I actually have zero idea.”

“Tell him you like me.”

“I  _ do _ like you.”

“I mean in a ‘I want to spend all my time around the pretty girl and make kissing noises’ kind of way.”

“Oh.”

“He’ll eat it up, I promise,” she said. They both laughed a little more nervously than intended. 

Bail did, in fact, eat it up. “I’ve heard of stranger ways to impress a girl, I’ll admit, but it’s a very sweet idea, Luke. Just… be careful, okay? Keep to the Archives only-- remember that I have ways of checking on this.”

Luke promised, swore up and down on several relatives’ graves, and even endured some good-natured ribbing about having a crush (the reality/unreality of which he didn’t have the time or inclination to examine at the moment). 

“I have some ideas on where to start,” Winter said the next time she came over. “Senators have to publish their daily agenda while on Coruscant-- something about fiscal responsibility to their constituents, I guess. We know the date and place of your birth: Coruscant, 16:5:24. And good news: Bail and Breha left Coruscant only two days later, presumably with you in tow.” She took over the datapad input and began typing in queries. “Wow, what a time to be born: that was the week the Galactic Empire was formed and the Jedi had their uprising. If your parents were in the middle of all that and decided ‘Hey, let’s adopt a kid…’”

“Then it might have been related,” Luke realized. 

“Because maybe your parents were killed by the Jedi or something. Maybe they were people Bail and Breha knew?”

“Lots of Senators died in the chaos that week. Let’s see…” She went back to typing. “A few of them were married, but no record of admission to any hospitals on Coruscant during that time period.”

“So maybe someone unmarried?”

“That’s only going to turn up the mother if she was the Senator… hang on.” She looked up. “There  _ is _ one: a Padme Naberrie Amidala, Senator from Naboo. She was admitted to Central Coruscant Medical Center the day before you were born, and then reported deceased the next day.”

“She died in  _ childbirth _ ? That’s impossible. Nobody does that.”

“Maybe it was something else and they had to induce labor before she died. It’s possible.” Winter returned to examining the screen. “Huh. That’s odd.” She typed a few additional commands and then returned to the previous display. “That’s  _ really _ odd.”

“What is?”

“The rest of the records for her are wiped.”

“What do you mean?” Luke asked.

“I mean there’s nothing on her. At all.”

“Maybe Senators can’t get information on other Senators. That would make sense.”

“I just tried a comparison with another Senator-- it just brings up a “Restricted Access” notification. No, these records are  _ gone _ . Someone went in and wiped her itineraries, her medical records, her personal correspondence--  _ everything  _ is gone. Other than a few random records, some public data from the news… that’s it.”

“So we don’t even know if she was pregnant. This might be totally unrelated.”

“I mean… Luke, this is really weird. There are all of these gaps in information, both here and with your parents. Bail and Breha should have told you that you were adopted and they didn’t. This Senator’s records should have been public record and they aren’t. Your past has secrets, Luke. Something happened. Something really bad.” She passed him the datapad.

Luke tried to take it in, but all he could think of was that feeling of being different, of being  _ special _ . Why would anyone erase the life of a Senator, especially one from the same planet as the Emperor? The sole surviving picture of her showed a pretty brunette woman, barely out of girlhood, standing next to a disconcertingly young Palpatine. The two were announcing the formation of an initiative to combat childhood malnutrition in the Outer Rim. She looked like a nice person. Someone compassionate and kind. Why would anyone erase her?

She must have done something awful. 

“Do you think she sided with the Rebels? Or maybe the Jedi?” he asked. 

“Maybe,” Winter replied. “Let me keep looking.” He handed her the datapad and she looked at the picture for a second. “You do kind of look like her,” she said. 

Luke felt a pang of jealousy, knowing that Winter would be able to keep that picture in her mind forever. 

He frowned. “If we can’t find the information, then how can we figure out why it was erased?”

“I had an idea about that, actually,” she said, resuming typing. “The absence of information can say just as much as the information itself. If we find other gaps in the data, we might be able to figure out why.”

Luke waited while she typed, growing increasingly bored, since Winter cut off all attempts at communication so that she could concentrate. He rocked back and forth in his chair until she shoved him out of Bail’s office with a stern instruction to go make tea. 

He had just returned with two mugs when he saw the look on her face change. “What is it?”

“There’s only one other group whose information has been decimated like this.”

Luke’s heart sank. “The Jedi.”

“Precisely. Some more than others, though. Let me keep looking.”

More boredom, though this time Luke had a new mental problem to wrestle with. Who was his father? If his mother was in league with the Jedi against the Empire, then did that mean that his father was a Jedi? He was pretty sure, from the holovids at least, that Jedi weren’t supposed to marry. They were also ruthless, distant, and corrupt, which didn’t fit with what he saw of the bright young woman who was (probably) his mother. 

“Aha!” Winter cried triumphantly. “I have a name. It was tricky, but fortunately I am very very good at those ‘what’s different about this picture’ games. He appears in a couple of records but is conspicuously absent from altered documents where he  _ should  _ be. And the age fits.”

“What’s the name?”

“Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

* * *

It was later that night when Bail found him. He was visibly upset. 

“Why did you lie to me?” he demanded of Luke. 

“What do you mean?” Luke asked innocently.

“Don’t do this to me, Luke,” his father replied. “This isn’t the time. You lied to me about what you were doing in the Archives. Looking up the Jedi? You know exactly how dangerous that is and you did it anyway. For some  _ girl. _ I thought you were smarter than this.”

“I might as well ask you the same question,” Luke snapped. “Why didn’t you tell me I was adopted? That my mother was a Senator? That my father was a J--”

To his shock, Bail grabbed him by the shirt lapel, hauled him to his feet and clamped a hand over Luke’s mouth. He hissed almost subaudibally in his son’s face: “Do not continue to say what you’re about to say. This is important. There are ears everywhere. My office might be bugged. This room almost certainly is. Now be quiet until I tell you otherwise.”

Luke was too stunned to say anything as Bail let him go. He watched his father take a small device out of his robe pocket and flick a switch. “Noise neutralizer. It doesn’t work for long but it’s enough for a conversation. Now listen,” he said, sitting in the room’s other chair and gesturing for Luke to sit back down in the other. “What you’re doing? You’re getting close to drawing attention to yourself. The Imperial Archives thing? We can play that off as a stupid impulse to impress your girlfriend--”

“--she’s not--”

“Later. We can deal with that part. But your curiosity about the Jedi ends here. No more looking in the Archives. No more speculation about your birth parents.” There was none of his usual sparkle; he was deathly serious.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“To avoid a conversation exactly like the one we’re having right now: you getting curious about them and finding out something you shouldn’t have.”

“So it’s true? My mother was the Naboo Senator.”

Bail looked pained. “Yes.”

“And my father was a Jedi?”

“Yes. But you can never talk about either of them. A lot of very powerful people went to a lot of trouble to cover them up; you uncovering it will put you in danger-- the kind of danger I can’t save you from.” He pressed his fingers to his temples. “This is where it begins, Luke. Starting now, you watch everything you say. Assume you are being watched at all times. Assume you have no secrets other than the ones just inside your head.”

“And Winter?”

“I’ll make sure she knows too. But soon, we’re going to have to start new lessons with you. How to close your mind, to keep what you know hidden.”

“Like anti-interrogation techniques?”

“Something like that. There are plenty of ways to get information out of people, some stranger than you’d ever suspect. You’ll learn how to keep your secrets safe.”

Luke nodded. 

“And hey,” Bail said, some of his usual energy creeping back in, “I know this is all a lot to take in. I wish I could tell you more about your parents, but I can’t. It’s too much for you to know… but your mother? Your birth mother? I worked with her for years and she was one of the most amazing women I had ever met in my life.” He placed a hand on Luke’s shoulder. “I’m sorry about before.”

“It’s okay.”

“We’ve worked so hard to keep you safe.”

“I know.” 

“I’m going to turn the device off, okay?”

“Okay.”

Bail pocketed the device again. He paused for a moment as if to say something else, but merely nodded at Luke and left. 

Luke wasn’t sure if it was all okay, or if it was all going to be okay. What he did know, however, was that things were going to be very different from now on.


	5. Hermit

“What were you thinking?” Uncle Owen roared at her when they were finally home. “A joyride in the Jundland Wastes? You and Camie could have gotten seriously hurt, or worse!”

“Excuse me?” Aunt Beru interjected. “She was doing _what_?” The durasteel edge on that last word promised additional fury was on its way.

“All this time,” Owen fumed. “All this time I thought you were just goofing off with your friends, when apparently you were off playing bounty hunter for credits to cobble together a pair of death traps. And taking them through the Canyon? I mean it, answer me, what were you thinking?”

“It was just a hobby,” Leia protested. “Something to do when we weren’t working at home. Maybe I’m just sick of doing the same thing every single day: the same three meals, the same chores, the same stupid repairs on the vaporators, and never going further from home than Toshe Station! I want to see more than this.”

“Every kid on Tatooine thinks that at one point or another,” Beru said. “But they don’t _build ships_ \--”

“Skyhoppers.”

“Don’t be cute.”

“Well, what else am I supposed to do around here? Waste water?”

“You’re supposed to act like a _normal_ kid,” Owen said.

“Well, I’m obviously failing at that, sorry,” Leia said sarcastically. “Just put up with me for another few years and then I’ll be out of your hair, just like my father. Maybe piloting’s in my blood, did you ever think of that?”

“Your father was a _navigator,_ not some sky jockey daredevil--”

“We were completely safe--”

“You crashed in the _desert--_ ” Owen sputtered.

“Not to mention all the canyon flying-- you could have flattened yourselves into a smear on the wall--” Beru added.

Leia banged her fist on the dinner table. “I bet this was the reason why he got the hell out of here when he could.”

“And look where it got him! Killed!” Owen shouted.

There was an awful silence.

“Who lives out in the Wastes?” Leia demanded without realizing what she was saying.

“Nobody sane or safe.”

“You know who I mean. The house.”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes you do,” Leia accused him. She knew he was lying.

“It’s none of your business.”

“Really? Because I’m starting to think that it is.” Owen didn’t answer. The deep well in her mind erupted. “ _Tell me!_ ”

Behind her came the sound of shattering: a shelf in one of the cabinets had given way, spilling the plates and glasses out onto the floor.

The fury of the moment receded, replaced by a feeling of unease. But Leia wasn’t done yet. She fixed her uncle with a hard stare. “I’m going back there.”

“No you’re not.”

“You can’t stop me.”

“Want to bet on that?” Owen said.

“You can’t watch me every minute of every day, even if you take turns. Not without neglecting the farm. And you’d never do that.”

Owen’s face went as still as sandstone. “You’re right. We can’t. We can’t stop you from getting yourself killed if you’re so hellbent on it. So go. Get out of here.”

“Owen--” Beru warned.

“Fine!” Leia shouted, storming off to her room to pack a bag.

* * *

Twenty  minutes later, she was at the Darklighter farm.

“I need to borrow your speeder bike,” she said.

“It’s not mine,” said Biggs.

“I need to borrow it.”

“What’s going on?”

“There’s something I found out in the Wastes. I need to go back and find out more.”

“Right now? It’s almost dark.” He glanced at the bag slung over her shoulder. “Leia… you’re not running away, are you?”

“No.” Though if she was honest, the thought _had_ crossed her mind. Maybe her aunt and uncle had just kicked her out anyway. “I had a fight with Owen and Beru, but I’m not running away. I just need to go now before they figure out a way to stop me.”

“Just… just come back, okay? If things are bad at home you can always stay here.” Biggs was actually worried. Leia squirmed uncomfortably; this was a little more emotionally sincere than she was comfortable with right now. Not after the day she’d had.

Though now the thought occurred to her that Biggs probably hadn’t had the best day either, considering that two of his friends had just crashed in the Jundland Wastes and one of them had evaded Jawas and Sandpeople and krayt dragons until she was rescued. He probably spent the whole afternoon worried about her.

No time for that now. She needed to go. “Biggs, I swear. I’ll be back, okay? I’m not running off to Mos Eisley or something. Nothing crazy.” Biggs arched a skeptical eyebrow. Leia sighed. “Okay, nothing _too_ crazy. I should be back in a few hours.”

Biggs was silent for a long time. Then: “Okay, fine.”

“You’re amazing. I’ll make it up to you.”

“Just tell me the whole story when you get back, okay?”

“It’s a deal.”

* * *

Amazingly, she didn’t get lost. The light of the twin suns setting was enough to see by, and if she was careful and watchful she’d be able to get back. And if Raiders came along… well, there was always a convenient shelter to stay in until morning.

She had to see who lived there. And, if possible, what was in that tantalizing box.

Getting the bike up into the hills was tricky; it wasn’t built for rough terrain, but it would move as long as she kept the repulsors running and got off and pushed. What was even harder, though, was finding that house again: she had stumbled across it on accident, and was too busy arguing with Owen on her way back down again. At last, she found a familiar rock formation… and there it was.

The door was closed this time. Leia got the bike out of sight as best she could (Biggs would kill her if his father’s bike was stolen by Jawas) and, feeling a bit foolish for some reason, walked up to the door and knocked.

She could have sworn she _felt_ the inhabitant’s surprise through the door. She knocked again.

Finally, the door opened, revealing an human man. At fourteen, Leia wasn’t good at determining ages, but she guessed he was in his sixties: a beard graying to white, though he still looked pretty spry, especially considering the giant stick he was wielding at the moment.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“I’m…” Leia paled a little. “I… uh… was here a few hours ago, but you were, um, out.” She tried to remember her cover story for why she had returned. “I think I left something here. A bracelet. I came to, to get it back?”

The man lowered the stick and sighed sadly. “No, you didn’t. But come in anyway.” He stepped aside and made room for her to enter., shutting the door behind her as she came in. “The darker outside it gets, the riskier the glow from inside becomes. I’d prefer to keep visitors from my door, if possible.” His accent was strange; almost like someone out of an Imperial holodrama. “How did you find this place?”

“On accident,” Leia admitted. “I was running from a krayt dragon and stumbled on it.”

He arched an eyebrow. “A krayt dragon, you say?” He sounded almost… amused?

“Why is that funny?” she asked, suspiciously.

“Not funny… not exactly,” he said. “Just unexpected. What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t, but it’s Leia. Leia Lars.”

This time, his reaction was even stranger: his jaw dropped. “Leia, you said?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh my. Oh my… this is unexpected. This was… sooner than I’d planned,” he murmured to himself.

“Do you know me?” she asked.

“I… no. Not yet. I… I meant to reach out, but your uncle wouldn’t have allowed it.”

This had gotten weird in a hurry. “Why?”

“He views me as a dangerous crank. Not to be trusted. But I meant to…”

“Are you?” she asked hesitantly.

“Am I what?”

“Dangerous.” It occurred to her that maybe going to a stranger’s house in the middle of nowhere by herself was a slightly stupid idea.

“Yes. But not to you. Unless you count my impressive krayt dragon impression.”

“Who are you?”

“Have a seat,” he gestured to a bench near the table. She sat; he sat in the one across from him. “My name is Ben. I have lived out here since shortly after you were born.”

“Why out here? I mean, was Anchorhead too exciting for you?” she said with a note of sarcasm.

He gave her a small smile. “In a way. I live a fairly idle life. A man who does nothing in a small town is easily noticed. But an eccentric hermit in the mountains? He too draws attention, but is easily dismissed.”

“You’re not from around here.”

“Precisely.”

“See, I can tell because _no one_ in Anchorhead would say ‘precisely’.”

He smiled again. “I have answered one of your questions, now you must answer one of mine. It’s only fair. Why have you come back out here, at dusk, on a borrowed speeder bike? Why the hurry?”

“I was curious.” She didn’t ask how he knew about the bike. Probably a lucky guess.

“It isn’t just that, is it,” he pressed.

Without meaning to, her eyes flicked over to where the box was. He noticed. “Ah,” he said. “Not entirely surprising. Well… you came all this way, go and look.”

She tried to get up with a degree of nonchalance, but in reality practically ran over to it. Lifting the lid, she discovered robes, some documents, a leather satchel… and underneath the robes, a strange cylinder with a switch on it. For a moment, she thought it was the handle of a speeder bike… but no. This was the thing that was calling to her. But how does a piece of tech even do that?

“Point it away from you,” Ben said, “And press the switch.”

She did as he instructed, and nearly dropped what turned out to be the last thing she expected to find.

She was holding a lightsaber.

An actual lightsaber.

The blue blade hummed with even the slightest motion she made; she began slowly guiding it from left to right.

“You’re going to cut your nose off if you hold it like that,” Ben cautioned.

She stilled it. “Are you a Jedi?” she asked, not taking her eyes off the blade.

He was silent. “I was. Once.”

“No wonder you’re living out all the way out here. If there’s a bright center of the universe, you’re on the planet that is farthest from.”

“Precisely. Now it’s my turn for a question: what has your uncle told you about your parents?”

She switched off the blade. “Nothing much,” she said, blinking her eyes to clear the afterimage. “My father was a Tatooine boy who left to work as a navigator on a freighter.” Spice, Owen had admitted during one slightly nasty argument a few months ago. A drug runner, but what other job could you get on a Hutt-controlled planet these days? “My mother was someone he met off-world. Owen didn’t know much about her.”

Ben sighed. “He lied to you.”

“What do you mean? About what?”

“Your father was no navigator. He was a Jedi Knight, a pupil of mine… years ago.”

“So he died during the Purge.” Everyone knew about that. The Jedi fought against the newly-formed Empire, and as a result were hunted down and killed. As the Imperials weren’t too popular in the Outer Rim, there was still some sympathy for them out here, though most people would only talk about them when drinking gave them some courage.

“Yes.”

“How?” Something heroic, she hoped.

A look of pain passed across his face. “I’d rather save that for another time, if you don’t mind,” he said softly.

“I’m sorry.” Another thought occurred to her. “I thought Jedi weren’t supposed to have kids.”

“It was admittedly a bit of a scandal at the time. They were married in secret while he served as her bodyguard.”

“What happened to her? Did she die too?”

“Yes. You were brought here to your aunt and uncle for safekeeping.”

“From what?”

“The Force is strong in your family,” was all he said in reply.

It took her a moment to understand. “So I could be a Jedi, too?”

“If you were trained, yes.”

“Is that why you’re here? So you could train me?”

He was quiet for a long time. “I’m right, aren’t I?” she asked.

Finally, he replied. “We’ll start with meditation. No combat until you learn control.”

Leia smiled.


	6. Barriers

“Breathe.”

“I’m breathing.”

“Without talking. Just breathe.”

Breathe in. Breathe out. 

“Feel that place of calm inside of you. Let it grow.”

You can do anything if you’re calm enough. 

“Don’t push your thoughts away. Just let them be.”

Just breathe. 

“Let that calm rise like water. Let it submerge those thoughts. Slowly. Let them sink down.”

His father was a Jedi. His father is a Senator.

His father died. His father lives. 

Luke felt his breath hitch. 

“Keep breathing. Find that calm again.”

“I’m trying.”

“Don’t try. Just breathe.”

“I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“I told you: don’t push it away. Let the water rise. Focus on that calm.”

How could he possibly be calm?

“I can’t feel it.”

“It’s there. Just let it rise to meet you where you are.”

There were secrets inside of him now. Things he had to keep hidden. 

He felt so exposed. Raw, like a scraped knee. 

How could he tell Winter?

“Breathe in. Breathe out,” Bail reminded him. 

“I’m afraid.”

“That’s okay. You can be afraid. But let it be. Accept it and move on.”

Just breathe. 

“Hold it steady. Let it flow through you.”

Breathe. 

_ A Jedi can feel the Force flowing through them. _

Luke opened his eyes. “What?”

Bail sat across from him. “What?” he echoed. 

“What did you say?”

Bail looked confused. “I didn’t say anything.”

“About the Je… I mean, the Force?”

“I didn’t say anything,” His father repeated. His confusion was giving way to concern. “Did you hear something?”

“Yeah… I… that was weird. I heard a voice. Or maybe it was just a thought… but it felt like someone else’s voice.” Someone his father’s age… but not his father. Who was it? “Sorry,” Luke said. “I’ll go back to breathing.”

“Sometimes our brains activate in strange places when we meditate,” Bail said. “Just let those thoughts come, and then let them pass.”

Luke closed his eyes again. 

Just let it be. 

The voice didn’t return, but he smelled dust in the air. 

* * *

“It’s a noise neutralizer,” Luke explained. “I borrowed it from my father.”

“Fascinating,” said Winter, examining it. “I’ve never seen one before.”

“There’s something I have to tell you.”

After he had finished relating what he and Bail had been up to, Winter said, “So he confirmed it all?”

“Yes.”

“Wow, I must be a genius at research. You’d think my tutor would have noticed.”

“Way to turn it around to praise yourself.”

“I can’t help it, I’m pretty great,” she said. “Anything else? That thing looks like it’s about to overheat.”

“No, just meditation mostly. Though… have you heard of someone called Darth Vader?”

She frowned for a second. “Yes. Only bits and pieces I overheard somewhere. Someone close to the Emperor. He’s supposed to be the one who led the fight against the Jedi. No one knows who he really is because he always wears a mask. Apparently he’s a frightening figure.”

“My father says he’s a Force-user. A powerful one. He can read minds.”

“So Bail’s trying to teach you how to block that power?” she asked.

“Something like that. Just in case. He’s interrogated a few Senators suspected of Rebel sympathies. It wasn’t pretty.”

“Luke… is Bail a Rebel?”

“I don’t know. He might just be trying to keep his past a secret, or keep me from being found out.” 

“Just… keep an eye out, okay? If he’s a Rebel he could be putting you all in danger.”

“Right. Yikes, you’re right about the overheating.” Luke switched off the device.

“So, are you up for showing me that swoop racer you’re so in love with?” Winter asked.

“I couldn’t possibly love any swoop racer as much as you seem to love yourself.”

“As I’ve stated before, I’m pretty special.”

“I forgot.”

“Well, only one of us has perfect recall, so…”

He didn’t mention the voice he heard. 

* * *

That night, he tried meditating again.

Breathe in. Breathe out. 

That ride with Winter that afternoon was nice. He could still feel the press of her against his back as he drove them through the course; remembered that yelp she gave as they rounded a particularly sharp corner, followed by a whoop of excitement practically right in his ear.

Don’t think about that. 

No.

It’s okay to think about that. But for now, just let it be.

He felt himself floating away from his body. The smell of dust returned, followed by a feeling of warmth. Voices began to trickle into his mind. 

“Gaffi sticks only, for now. If you lose a hand you’re not going to be much use.”

“These things are  _ heavy _ .”

“Once you can control a gaff, you can begin learning to control a lightsaber.”

“Did you make that one? I heard that Jedi all make their own swords.”

“Sabers. And yes. It’s one of the final tasks before an apprentice faces the Trials.”

“What’s a Trial?”

“It’s my turn to ask a question.”

A girl. And an old man. With a gasp, he snapped back to himself. 

His arms ached. Those things  _ were  _ heavy.

No. That was just the ache from Winter squeezing his arms so hard he almost lost feeling in his fingers. “You’re not going to fall off!” he had shouted back at her. “Ease up a bit!”

“Sorry!” she yelled back. “This is just a little…”

“A little what?”

“Intense!”

“I’m only going about half the speed this thing can do. Wait till I really open her up.”

He could feel her scoff against the back of his neck. “ _ Her. _ Gross.”

“What? That’s how people refer to ships!”

“This is a  _ bike _ ,” she countered.

“Close enough!”

“You know, in most languages other than Basic, they rarely bother with gendered pronouns. Except Twi’lek. That one has about five different forms of gendered pronouns, based on age, rank, fertility--”

“I get it!”

“I’d probably use  _ di’aldina _ to refer to you.”

“Do I really want to know how fertile you think I am?”

“I know a  _ lot _ about you, remember?”

“Gross. I’m speeding up now.”

“No, wait!” But any further conversation was drowned out by the wind whipping by. 

He could practically  _ feel _ her excitement, though. He remembered the first time his father had taken him out racing. It had been amazing. 

Fathers. 

Had he heard that strange conversation through the Force? He had heard of Jedi being able to communicate across long distances, speaking mind-to-mind, but he had never heard of them being able to eavesdrop on other people. Maybe that’s what made the Jedi so dangerous. 

Winter’s question from before still nagged at him.  _ Was  _ Bail a Rebel? He certainly seemed to have Rebel sympathies, but he was also an Imperial Senator and had been for decades. No wonder he had gone to such lengths to learn how to block his thoughts. And no wonder he was pushing so hard for Luke to learn how to block his own. 

He must want Luke to join him. 

As Luke slept that night, he dreamed of being chased through endless corridors, running for his life, as a black-masked figure stalked menacingly behind him. Every time Luke thought he had lost him, there he was, still striding slowly, inexorably forward. Every time Luke managed to shut a door behind him, he couldn’t find the lock, and knew, somehow, that every secret thing he had ever thought was about to be laid bare before him. And the masked figure kept coming. 

Luke tried to remember what Bail had taught him, but the panic was too close. He tried to breathe, but his breath felt like it was controlled by something else, dragged in and out of him in rasping mechanical gasps.


	7. Inferno

Leia arrived back home to find it in flames.

She could see it from a distance as she headed back to return the bike to Biggs’ farm, so she pulled a hard right and headed straight for it. 

The Sandpeople had raided the farm while she was away. She could see humanoid figures running back and forth between the various buildings, including the central dugout that served as the Lars family living quarters. Their dark forms were silhouetted against the flames writhing up into the night air.

Leia slammed on the throttle and went so fast that she forgot how to breathe. 

Please be okay, please be okay, please be okay.

It can’t have ended like this.

As soon as she hit the smoke towards the center of the farm she saw that the humanoid figures were not Sandpeople but their neighbors: the Darklighters, the Loneozners, the Starkillers. 

“Uncle Owen!” Leia hollered through the itchiness caused by the smoke. She stumbled off of the bike, practically flinging herself onto the sand. “Aunt Beru!”

That can’t have been her last conversation with them. 

Huff Darklighter caught her by the arm. “It’s okay!” he bellowed through the filtration mask on the lower half of his face. “They’re okay; just a little smoke inhalation.”

“When?” she yelled just as loudly. 

“About an hour ago. Galen drove them over to my place to rest. The rest of us are trying to put out the flames and salvage what we can.” Behind him, Leia could see some of her neighbors carrying repulsorsleds of sand to dump on the flames; most of the stone structures would survive but the contents in them were likely destroyed as though in a kiln. 

“Go over and see them now, okay? They were asking after you,” Huff turned his attention back towards the inferno that had once been her home. Then he looked back. “Hang on, is that my bike?”

But Leia was already starting it up and speeding off. 

* * *

It was like being a child again. She threw herself at Owen’s chest, nearly knocking the chair he was sitting in backwards.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking…” she cried. “I’m so sorry…”

No, you’re not, a voice inside her pointed out. But she had let her fear have free reign, and fear was good at telling lies. 

“Shh, shh… it’s okay. We’re just glad you’re okay,” Uncle Owen said, stroking her hair like he and Beru used to when she was younger. 

“I should have been here,” she whispered. 

Beru sighed. “Maybe it was best that you weren’t. We barely made it out ourselves. Owen caught them dismantling a condenser on the southern ridge and only just got back to the house before they rode up.” She coughed into her hands. “We couldn’t save much, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Leia said. It was true; life as a moisture farmer didn’t come with a lot of valuable possessions, other than the meaning that you gave them. Her clothes, old toys, and a second-hand datapad were all she had to her name. It could all be replaced, eventually, if she could raise a few credits. Owen and Beru had probably lost things of true value: family heirlooms like Beru’s mother’s dishes (though about a third of them had been smashed earlier in the day). 

“We couldn’t save R5-D7,” Owen said. “That’s going to be a heavy loss.” That was true too: droids were expensive and good ones were hard to replace. R5 had been with the family for almost Leia’s entire life and had outlasted most of the farm’s other maintenance droids. She thought of him almost like a beloved pet, even though Fixer had pointed out to her that it was pretty degrading seeing as R5 was smarter than she was. 

“All of this,” Beru sighed, “over a few condensers. I don’t know how we’re going to get back on our feet.”

“Well, no doubt the Hutts will be sending some loan agent our way in the coming days,” Owen said grimly. 

“Owen, no--”

“What other choice do we have? Everyone around here has only so much to spare. We can maybe borrow a droid from Huff for a few weeks, but there’s too much that needs replacing.”

Leia had pieced together the stakes from local gossip: being in debt to the Hutts meant big trouble. They charged high interests and expected that you cater to their whims, even if it meant crossing the Imperials or worse. Camie’s cousins had gotten in deep with them and soon they were shipping something even worse than banthas offworld: slaves. When one cousin protested, he was apparently fed to one of Jabba’s fearsome pets. 

Something occurred to her. “How did the fire start? They usually just break things, they don’t start fires.” The Raiders wore too much cloth for them to be comfortable with fire (plus it tended to make the banthas skittish). 

Owen shrugged. “Who knows? The fact was that they did it. Huff’s talking about more patrols, checking in on comms more regularly. They’re getting bolder lately.”

“You look exhausted, Leia,” Beru said. “Why don’t you go find Biggs and have him find a place for you to sleep tonight?”

Leia nodded, and went to find Biggs. The Darklighter farm was larger than most of the other farms around. While Huff did a decent trade in moisture farming, he had also built up a solid secondhand goods business. While the Lars family was being sheltered here because it was the closest farm, it was also because the Darklighters had enough to spare. They could afford to house their neighbors for a few weeks while they figured out what to do next. 

Reciprocity was a way of life out here in Anchorhead, but there was so little to go around. 

She found Biggs in his usual spot: one of the maintenance sheds over by the western dunes. He was sitting silently just outside, watching the Lars farm burn in the distance. 

“I’m sorry,” was all he could say. 

“Not your fault. Blame the Sandpeople,” she said, sitting beside him.

“I can’t believe they set the place on fire,” Biggs said.

“I know… it’s weird for Sandpeople, right?”

Biggs thought about it. “Yeah… that’s really strange.”

“Because fire is like a  _ thing _ with them.” She watched the flames go down. For the first time in hours she was able to calm herself enough to do her breathing. 

Breathe in. Breathe out. 

What were they doing to do?

A thought came to her seemingly out of nowhere. Calming down and breathing was good for that sort of thing, but this was like a blaster bolt. 

“Biggs… have there been any other fires around here lately?”

“Actually… yeah. Yeah, a few. People thought it was faulty wiring at the Novaker farm, a defective droid or something. Plus, the heat’s been bad lately.”

“And then, after every fire… the Hutts show up with a loan offer.”

Biggs’ face turned grim. “Yeah.” 

“What if the Raiders aren’t the ones starting the fires?”

Biggs turned to her. “You think the  _ Hutts  _ are behind this?”

“Why not?” Leia countered. “It’s the perfect scheme. Disguise a few minions as Raiders, start a few fires, and then get the local farmers even more in debt to them.” She clenched her fists. “There are going to be more fires, I bet. More families in trouble like mine is.”

“Huff won’t let Owen make a deal with them,” Biggs swore. 

“He might not have a choice. We were barely making it as it was; it’s not like he can support a failing moisture farm for long.”

“What else is there to do?”

“Maybe nothing  _ they _ can do…” Leia mused. “But maybe  _ we _ could do something about it.”

“What, start a firefighting crew?”

“Let me think about it tonight… and invite the gang over tomorrow. I might have a plan by then.” She rose to her feet and headed back towards the main house.

“Oh! I forgot to ask: how was your trip?” Biggs called after her. 

“I met a Jedi.”

“Wait,  _ what. _ ”

“Goodnight!”

* * *

“I want to go on record here that this plan is completely crazy,” Fixer said after she had finished explaining it.

“What? I’m not saying that we storm Jabba’s palace tomorrow. I’m just saying that there’s stuff we can do-- or learn to do.” Her mind was whizzing away, as though the deep well had become a cyclone. She was possessed by an unshakeable certainty that no skeptical teenager could possibly quash. 

We can do this. I  _ know _ we can do this. 

“I don’t want to be all ‘we’re just kids,’ but Leia, we’re just kids,” Tank said. “Why  _ us _ ?”

“Because our parents are all too busy keeping the farms running. We’re the ones who have the spare time to goof off,” Leia said. “So why not put that time to some good use? Camie, for example-- you’ve gotten so much better at fixing stuff by working on it all the time, right?”

“Well, sure,” she replied.

“So why can’t the rest of us learn things too? We could catch the arsonists in the act. We could keep the Hutt’s loan agents from coming around preying on everyone.” They could do anything. She  _ knew _ it.

“Including learning to be a Jedi,” Fixer said skeptically. 

“Well… yeah!”

“But just you, though.”

“Not unless any of the rest of you have been holding out on us,” Leia said. Then a thought occurred to her. “Actually... does anyone have a landspeeder we could borrow for a few hours?”

* * *

“No,” said Ben, shutting the door in their faces.

“Come on, Ben!” Leia yelled through the door. “I’m not saying teach us all the ways of the Force, I’m just saying… I don’t know, teach us how to wield a Gaffi Stick or something.”

“No,” he called back. “That is not what I’m here for.”

“What, because you have such a busy day?”

He opened the door again and surveyed them all. “And why exactly would I be training a group of children in the ways of hand-to-hand combat?”

“We’re going after the Hutts.”

“No.” And again the door closed. 

“Damn it, Ben!” she yelled, banging on the door. 

“Let’s just go, Leia,” said Biggs, putting a hand on her arm.

“No!” she said, shaking her arm free. “This is important. Ben,” she said, turning back to the door, “you told me yesterday that the Jedi were the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy. That wasn’t just you feeding me a line. You actually believe that. So  _ let us help _ . I can’t do this by myself.” She turned back to the others. “Think about it-- we started with nothing and worked our way up to two skyhoppers. When we work together, we accomplish all sorts of things that we’d never be able to do alone. What are a few Hutt lackeys against all that?”

“Stronger, meaner, scarier,” Tank ticked off on his fingers. Leia rolled her eyes. 

“Leia,” Biggs said. “The others are right. This is a completely absurd idea.”

She fixed him with a stare. “Biggs, that’s why it matters.  _ Because _ it’s completely absurd.  _ Because _ we’re just kids.  _ Because _ they can flatten us into the dirt. And because we can do something about it. So why don’t we?”

The others started nodding. 

Ben opened the door. “Fine. We’ll try this on a trial basis. Once a week, and this is to be kept a  _ secret _ , do you understand?” The group nodded obediently. “Come inside.” As Leia made to enter, he grabbed her shoulder. “Not you. I need to have a word with you.”

After the door closed, leaving the two of them outside, Ben’s face grew stony. “Do you realize what you just did?”

“Gave a really inspiring speech and convinced you to help me?”

“You used a mind trick. On your  _ friends _ .” He ran a hand over his beard. “How long have you been able to do this?”

“I don’t know what you mean.” 

“Yes, you do.”

“It wasn’t a big deal. They were going to agree with me anyway.” 

“You are never to do that again, do you understand me?” he said with an intensity she had not seen before. Then she realized that, underneath his anger, Ben was  _ scared _ .

Scared of  _ her _ . 

She nodded. “I understand.” 

He let out a heavy breath. “We will speak of this later, but you need to know this right now: the Force has a light side and a dark side. The light side is used for defense, never for attack. The dark side is powered by negative emotions: fear, hatred, greed. It is selfish and cruel. And once you start down that path, coming back to the light is next to impossible. Yes, it is my intention to train you in the ways of the Jedi, and that includes keeping you on the side of the light. Do you understand me?”

She nodded again. “Yes.”

“Then we shall begin.” He opened the door.

“I--” Leia began. He stopped and turned back to her. “I’m sorry.”

And this time she meant it.

He gave her a nod. “Come inside, my young apprentice.”

And so it began.


	8. Mercy

“Can we talk?” Luke asked. 

“Of course,” Bail said, turning from his desk to find Luke in the doorway of his office. 

“No, I mean… can we  _ talk _ .”

“Ah. Probably best to do that over a mug of tea, don’t you think?” which Luke interpreted as “meet me in the kitchen”... though the tea part was probably a literal request as well. It really was a  _ thing _ in the Organa household.

The water had just boiled when Bail joined him. He took his time preparing the tea, which drove Luke to distraction while he waited impatiently. At last, the ever-important device came out and was turned on. “So,” said his father. “What did you want to talk about?”

There was no easy way to ask this, so Luke chose the most direct. “Are you part of the Rebellion?”

For a moment, Bail gave no indication that he had even heard him. Luke was confused. Wouldn’t a yes or no answer be the only two options?

Finally, his father answered. “Do you see my face right now?” he asked softly.

“Yes?” Luke’s confusion grew.

“That is the result of years of practice. When asked a question like that, Luke, nothing about you can betray the answer: not your face, not your body language, not even your own thoughts. That’s what I’m trying to teach you.”

“So it’s true, then.” His own father was a Rebel.

“I’m saying that it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. This question is provocative, yes, but you’re going to get all sorts of questions in the years to come and it  _ will not matter _ what the answer really is because your reaction has to be exactly the same no matter what. My son, one of the things I love about you is your unflinching honesty but that is the exact thing that will be your greatest liability. You are an honest person who is going to have to learn how to lie, to lie completely and without shame or remorse. To give up the truth in the service of something bigger. And I’m sorry that I can’t protect you from that. All I can do is teach you how to survive.”

“But are you a Rebel?”

“Tell me what a Rebel is, Luke.”

“Someone who… who opposes the Empire.”

“And why do they do that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Think. Try to imagine what would make someone put themselves in such a dangerous position. Take a moment and empathize; you’re good at that.”

“Because… maybe the Empire has hurt them. Or hurt someone they love.”

“Maybe. What else?”

“Maybe they thought the Jedi were good people and didn’t deserve to die.” He frowned. “Come to think of it, what kind of Empire would just kill off a bunch of people based on their religion?”

“What else?”

“Maybe… I don’t know, maybe they just think that the Empire are the bad guys.” He gave a shrug. “But how do you even know who the bad guys are? Or the good guys? It’s all relative, isn’t it?”

“That’s something you’ll have to decide for yourself,” Bail said. “But you do have to decide, one of these days, or else you’ll never do anything.”

“Well, how do  _ you _ decide?”

His father gave a small smile, as though Luke had paid him a compliment. “I look for the people who are hurting. And then I look for the people who are hurting them. And those people are usually the bad guys.”

“And then what do you do? This is Alderaan, we don’t have any weapons.”

“Sometimes the only way to help isn’t to destroy something, but to preserve something.” He gestured to the noise neutralizer. “I think we can turn this off for now. We’ve gotten too abstract by now to attract any notice.” He switched off the device and took a sip of tea. “So,” he said. “The problem of good and evil, eh?”

“It doesn’t  _ feel _ abstract,” Luke grumbled into his tea.

“Well, it usually isn’t. It’s also not typically some galaxy-spanning battle royale. Sometimes it’s just in the choices of a single person. Or whether or not a small group can find some hope in the midst of despair. Or if someone decides to act justly. Or to show mercy.”

“Sometimes you can’t do both, though. Sometimes justice and mercy are at cross-purposes.” 

“That’s true. Sometimes you have to decide. Do you punish an evil person or try to turn them back to the light?”

“It depends on what they’d done, I guess,” Luke said. 

“Or this: do you lie to keep someone from making the wrong decision, or do you tell the truth and let them decide for themselves?”

“It depends,” Luke said again.

“It’s always going to depend, Luke. But when you decide in those situations, you’re taking one step closer to knowing who you really are.”

“You never answered my question.”

“You already know the answer.” He picked up his mug and stood. “Let’s keep this one just between us, okay?”

“Not even Winter?” Luke said, frowning. 

Bail’s face darkened slightly. He looked uneasy. “That perfect memory of hers might be a liability some day. Just remember that.” And with that, his father went back in the direction of his office. 

* * *

“So he didn’t tell you?” Winter asked.

“No,” Luke said. He had been toying with the idea of telling her what he had guessed, but decided against it until he had figured out exactly  _ what  _ his father had been trying to tell him. Especially what he said about Winter. What kind of liability was he talking about? 

She picked up the noise neutralizer. “We can’t keep depending on this for conversations.”

“What do you propose instead?” 

“That we get better at saying something  _ other _ than what we’re saying, if you get my meaning.”

“What, like code words?”

“No, too easy to crack. I was thinking more along the lines of, well, lying.”

“Well, I have to practice that anyway,” sighed Luke. 

“You really do need the practice; you have about a million tells. You’d make an awful sabacc player.”

“So we turn off the device.”

“And then we lie. Or don’t lie. Whatever makes the most sense at the time.”

“And I’ll get better at lying until you can’t tell the difference anymore.”

“Maybe.”

“I don’t like this, Winter.”

“Me either. But would you rather go back to not knowing all of this?”

“No.” Luke shuddered. “This is scary, but it’s better than not knowing.”

“So here we go.” She clicked off the device.

They sat in an awkward silence for several minutes. 

“Hey,” Winter asked finally. “What do you want to do when you grow up?”

“What?”

“Prince isn’t much of a job, you know.”

“Hey, it’s pretty lucrative, all things considered.”

“Come on. What are you going to do? You hate being bored, that’s why you like me so much.”

“Maybe I’ll become a Senator, like my father.”

“Liar.”

“Okay fine, I’m not crazy about the idea, but I might not have a choice in the matter.”

“So what do you want?”

“I don’t know! Something where…” his conversation from earlier came back into his thoughts, “something where I could help people. There’s a lot of awful stuff going on in the galaxy--”

“--or even here on Alderaan--”

“--and I have money and time on my hands. Why not try and alleviate some of it?”

“So you’d start some kind of foundation?”

“I guess? But I’d want to be able to actually  _ go _ to those places where people need help.”

“Lots of rich people do that. It’s like a whole tourism industry.”

“Ugh,” Luke said. “Maybe not that exactly, but treating it like… like a mission.”

“A mission?”

“Yeah,” Luke said, started to get excited. “A mission of mercy. The Empire is supposed to impose justice, so why can’t we balance that out a little?”

“So what would that look like?”

“We’d do reconnaissance beforehand. Select a crew and a team. Have really specific objectives. And then we’d go. No tourism. Just do the job and get out.”

“I notice you’re saying ‘we’ a lot here,” Winter said. “I never agreed to this.”

“But what do you think? Do you think it would work?”

“It certainly sounds more interesting than the foundations my parents are involved in. It also sounds like a lot of work.”

“Like I said. We have time. We have money. Let’s put it to some use.”

“Luke, we have no idea what we’re even doing.”

“We’ll figure it out. I still have a bunch of schooling to finish up first.”

“And this is all assuming that you won’t be off Senator-ing.”

“I could do both!”

“Liar.”

He grinned. “I wasn’t lying that time.”

And so it began.


	9. Twin Suns

Leia always knew she was special.

By day, of course, she was still Leia Lars, seventeen-year-old niece of a pair of struggling moisture farmers. She had the same three meals a day, repaired the same rickety vaporators every morning, and had the same argument with her aunt and uncle every evening.    


“Where are you going?” they would ask

“It’s none of your business,” she would reply. No anger, just matter-of-fact.

“It should be.”

“We had a deal. I do my chores, work the farm, and show up for every meal, and you don’t ask what I do at night.”

They still asked, every time. 

By day, she counted the hours until it was over.

By night, however, she was something eternal. 

By night, she was Leia Skywalker, Jedi apprentice and leader of the Twin Suns. 

It had started just the five of them, with a few Gaffi Sticks, some raggedy disguises, and too much inexperience to know what they were getting themselves into. They met the Hutt agent on her way to the Lars farm, where there were still shards of glass from the melted sand. Few people outside of Anchorhead had ever seen a Tusken Raider up close, otherwise their disguises would have been obviously fake. 

With Camie’s help, Leia had managed to put together a vocoder to disguise her voice into a buzzy mechanical rasp of a sound. Overenunciating gave it an interesting series of clicks, and it soon became a standard part of her disguise for Twin Suns missions. 

“It’s creepy,” Fixer said when she first used it. “You don’t even sound human.”

“Good,” Leia said. “It’ll help.”

“It almost sounds like a translator chip is doing the talking.”

“Even better.”

The Hutt agent was completely unprepared. 

“Our land,” rasped Leia, brandishing her Gaffi Stick. “No Hutts. Go.” Tank, the tallest of the group, stepped forward with his own gaff. Rather than talk, he did his best impression of the Raiders’ confusing roar. “Go!” Leia shouted. The rest of the group gave their own roars in a ghastly chorus.

The agent ran back to her speeder, drove away, and did not come back for weeks. 

The next time she returned, they lay in wait until she was already inside the house of the Starkillers (who had had a minor fire of their own a few weeks after the Lars farm), and sabotaged her speeder. Through their macrobinoculars, they watched her as the speeder’s repulsors gradually sputtered out a few kilometers away from the nearest farm. 

“It’s nice to be able to do that  _ intentionally _ ,” Camie said with a grin. 

Their families, too busy with their own farms and struggles, took months to notice that anything was amiss. They were eventually allowed to resume flying skyhoppers, but by that time their ambitions had surpassed those tiny triumphs. 

Three years later, the Twin Suns gang numbered in the dozens, and the Hutts were beginning to notice. There were rumors of bounties posted for its masked leader; though, of course, they all wore disguises.

“This next shipment is guarded pretty well,” Camie reported over the comms. “I count at least twenty.”

“How many Gammoreans?” Tank asked, positioned on the ridge overlooking the pass. The last three years had been good to Tank: he had grown into his name and become an imposing figure, towering over most of the gang. He could even lift a bowcaster with ease, and held one now as he surveyed the terrain. 

“Only three. They seem to be relying on quicker lackeys than before,” Camie replied. Though she still did repairs on the hoppers and bikes, her real genius turned out to be in electronics. Her tiny monitor droids were an invaluable part of their operation these days: reconnaissance was their greatest asset and Camie made it all possible. 

“Sun Three, is your crew ready?” Leia asked. The gang had gotten used to her mechanical voice in time, to the extent that Biggs had one remarked that it was easy to forget that she was the same person without it. Sometimes Leia forgot that herself.

“In position,” Fixer said. While Leia was responsible for the big picture ideas, Fix had a head for tactics that no one could match. His section of the squad could appear seemingly out of nowhere and vanish back into the crannies of the canyon like sand in the wind. He seemed to always be in the right place. 

It was Leia’s job to make sure that they were there at the right time. 

“Sun Two?” she asked. 

Biggs replied with a double click of the comm. He had accomplished the greatest feat of all: infiltrating Jabba’s palace. By chance, he had been assigned to this particular patrol; this was good for the gang but risky for Biggs himself. He could do it, though; Leia sometimes doubted other members but she never doubted Biggs. 

“Do we stick with the plan, Sun Leader?” Fix asked.

There was more to his question than mere tactics. Leia’s precognitive abilities had never been particularly strong, in spite of Ben Kenobi’s best efforts, but her sense of danger had improved over the years. Twin Suns had experienced losses, yes, but Leia had a measure of pride in the fact that they had always managed to pull  _ some _ victory from the jaws of defeat, even if it was just getting as much of the crew as possible home again. 

Ben cautioned her against letting her pride get the better of her. 

“We stick with the plan,” she finally said. “Leave the Gammoreans for last.”

“Sun Leader, they’re almost to the target spot,” Camie said. 

“Thanks, Sun Four,” Leia said. “Sun Five, you’ll take the first shot after the decoys go off.”

“Acknowledged,” said Tank. 

“Waiting on your signal,” Camie said. 

The comms went quiet. 

Just breathe. Stretch out with your feelings. 

You can do anything if you’re calm enough.

Now.

“Go,” she said. 

Camie had rigged up a series of small droids along the walls of the pass. At Leia’s signal, she triggered them to fire a series of stun bolts from various points. Distracted, Jabba’s minions fanned out, blasters drawn and firing in the direction of the decoys. Tank’s bowcaster took out the first guard, sending him to the ground with a bolt in the shoulder. 

Once the guards were far away enough, Leia gave the next signal, this time to Fixer’s team to move in. “And remember to steer clear of Sun Two, everyone! They’re no good to us if they’re taken out of commission.” Biggs’ role in this operation was to make sure he was the main person left guarding the skiff that the minions had been sent to protect while it made its way from Jabba’s palace to Mos Eisley. So far, he and the Gammoreans were the only ones still within striking distance of the skiff. They were tough and could shake off a stun bolt with ease. Tank’s bowcaster would likely be necessary, though he’d have to wait until Fixer’s crew could draw them away from the skiff. 

The cargo inside was too precious to risk hitting with a stray bolt of that caliber. 

However, Tank and his unit kept up a consistent burst of cover fire to harry the guards until Fixer’s crew could take them out. Fixer’s crew was doing well; the extra lessons with stun batons and shields were paying off. The batons weren’t the most reliable of weapons, but even without the shocking power it was still effective as a blunt weapon. 

The second that Biggs was sure he could speak without being overheard, he was back on the comms. “Sun Leader, we’ve got a problem headed your way on the western side.”

“Damn,” Leia muttered. Another squad of Jabba’s thugs. “How many?”

“Only three, but they’re not Jabba’s. They’re Imps.”

Leia’s blood ran cold. “What do you mean, they’re Imps?”

“Jabba’s cozier with them than we thought. I didn’t find out till it was too late but Jabba’s trying to put them onto us too.”

“They’re on the payroll?”

“More like common interests. We’re not exactly interested in their definition of law and order.”

“Damn,” Leia repeated. She was a quick bike ride from the western edge; she and Camie had been holed up in a modified skiff of their own. “How soon?”

“Minutes.”

“I’ve got time. Sun Five, keep your eyes open for anyone approaching across the pass.”

“Acknowledged,” said Tank. 

They had tangled with Imperials before, but this was the first time any had intentionally shown up to a skirmish. The stakes had just gotten higher; Leia wasn’t sure what they would do with the cargo, but she suspected it wasn’t going to be anything that wasn’t in Jabba’s best interests. 

She pushed her bike as fast as it could go. 

She was ready for this. It’s what she had trained for. 

She saw them: a trio of stormtroopers approaching the western edge of the pass. They were still far enough off that they couldn’t easily get at Tank’s crew without sacrificing a lot of accuracy. 

She leapt off the bike without bothering to slow it down; Camie had rigged up a nice emergency brake that would bring the bike to a quick halt when it sensed its passenger was missing. Her opening swing with the Gaffi Stick connected with the first trooper’s helmet with a satisfying thunk. 

A lightsaber would have been nice, of course. But it would have been the quickest way to bring the Empire down on all their heads, Ben had pointed out. 

It was amazing how slow these stormtroopers were. She darted between the next two, grabbing the arm of one and twisting it into a lock behind their back. She heard a sharp cry of pain through the helmet and then the trooper dropped their blaster. Leia shoved it away from her with the Force; it skidded over the sand to land several meters away. A kick to the small of the back, and then it was an easy matter to bring the gaff down again, putting them out of commission. 

The final trooper was a little faster, but Leia moved fluidly around them like it was a dance. She dodged a blaster bolt, landed in a crouch, and delivered a precise kick to the side of the trooper’s calf. Down they went, and Leia snagged their blaster with a quick Force pull. She flicked the weapon over to stun and pumped a bolt into each of them. By the time they regained consciousness, the Twin Suns would be gone.

As long as she was nearby, she might as well help out. “Imps are down, I’m coming to you, Sun Two.” Looping her cable around a nearby rock formation, she rappelled down the side of the pass, where Fixer’s team had finished mopping up the rest of the guards. Even the Gammoreans were down. 

“Tie them up,” she instructed Fix. 

“All twenty?”

“Leave them for the Jawas.” She went to meet Biggs at the door to the skiff. He had opened it and was helping to unload the cargo. 

“Where are we going?” the first of them asked. 

“Off world. Wherever you want to go, I promise,” Leia told them. Jabba was deep in the spice trade, but his biggest money maker was slaves. Leia aimed to put a stop to that stream of income. No one deserved that kind of life. 

Ben had told her a little more about her father over the years: how Anakin Skywalker grew up as a slave on Tatooine before winning his freedom in a podrace and joining the Jedi Order. That alone had strengthened Leia’s commitment to going after the Hutt cartels. It was also, she reminded herself, what a Jedi would do. Or what they were  _ supposed _ to do, at least. 

They took the now-former slaves-- only a dozen in all; Jabba was getting more cautious about his shipments-- to Mos Eisley on the Twin Suns’ skiff. One or two of Fixer’s crew came with them, while the rest of them joined Tank’s crew in scavenging what they could from the guards and troopers (“Think about what we could do with a few trooper uniforms,” Biggs marveled); they’d discreetly sell off some and stash the rest in one of their safehouses in Mos Eisley. 

Some of the proceeds went to their latest charges, including passage on a few freighters that weren’t in too deep with Jabba’s gang and didn’t ask too many questions. 

The  _ Bria _ was her favorite. 

* * *

“Ten thousand,” the smuggler offered. 

Leia scoffed. “You’re not a pleasure yacht, you’re a tiny light freighter. Five is more than generous.”

“Not considering the risk I’m taking.”

“What risk? You’re going to Nar Shaddaa anyway, I’m just asking you to take a few friends.” 

“Sure, sure, those ‘friends’ of yours.” He absentmindedly picked at some of the stuffing poking out of his seat; Leia didn’t want to think about what disgusting substance those things were composed of. 

“I should have asked the Wookiee,” she sighed. 

“Maybe you should have; he’s a soft touch… though that’s mostly the fur.”

“Six, but no higher,” she offered.

“Six, and you have a drink with me.”

“Six, I have a drink with you, but you’re paying.”

“Deal.”

“And it had better be a  _ good _ drink. None of that engine coolant stuff you seem so fond of.”

“I make no promises, your worship,” he said, with a wink that drew an unexpected blush from her. 

“I knew I should have asked the Wookiee,” she muttered.


	10. Rebel

Luke always knew he was special. 

Not just because he was a Prince of Alderaan, scion of the House of Organa, and his parent’s only child. No, he knew he was special because he was keeping far too many secrets for one seventeen-year-old to have. 

By day, he was Luke Organa, junior legislator from Alderaan and on the fast track to replacing his father in the Imperial Senate. He was the founder of a renowned foundation that was amassing money and power almost as fast as he could spend it. Society pages painted him as a naive idealist, which was occasionally frustrating until Winter reminded him that he  _ was _ , in fact, an idealist and probably still naive to boot. 

The rest of the time, he was a Rebel. 

No, he was a Rebel all the time, he realized. He was just getting better at hiding it. 

Bail hadn’t needed to explain it, in the end. It was probably one of Luke’s most potent lessons: how to acquire information without giving anything away. He had to keep his own secrets in order to survive, but in order to succeed he would have to learn the secrets of others. His father had been a Rebel from the very beginning, which turned out to be longer ago than Luke had realized. He had been a Rebel since before Luke was even born, back when the Republic was crumbling under the weight of its own decay. The Rebellion, he learned, wasn’t seeking to tear down the Empire as Luke had originally assumed, but was working to restore the ideals of the Old Republic. 

In the meantime, though, the Rebellion needed help. Help that Luke could provide. 

It started small, at first. A Mercy Mission to Dantooine had a few anonymous crates of supplies go unaccounted for; another Mission to a few planets resulted in an astromech droid returning to the ship with an anonymous message recorded on it. The droid was a good resource, though the binary language made it a little hard to communicate. A protocol droid might blend in better, depending on the setting. He should ask Winter to look into that. 

The larger and more visible the Missions got, though, the more the Empire tried to butt in. The Moffs wanted a cut of the funds to go to their pet projects, the local authorities wanted contracts, and the red tape piled up. But between Winter’s knack for efficiency and Luke’s perpetual ability to get his own way in most things, the foundation’s work got done with as little interference as they could manage. 

Bail was proud of him, Luke knew, but also occasionally worried at the attention Luke seemed to attract anywhere he went. “I don’t want you becoming a target.”

“If I’m going to continue in politics,” Luke pointed out, “I’m going to have to be in the public eye. This is good practice.”

“There has been increasing criticism that you’re not doing enough to help your own planet.”

“Alderaan can manage without me.”

“I know that. I just wanted to make sure that  _ you _ knew that.”

Bail had a point. One of the ways that Luke could help the Rebellion in the future would be to take over his father’s position, but in order to do that he was going to need the support of other Alderaanians. 

But that could wait. No one had been a senator this young, anyway. He could schmooze with other noble houses later.

Unless you counted this morning’s appointment. 

Winter met him at the foundation offices shortly after he arrived. 

“Are they actually still coming?” he asked her. The Rhoonis had canceled on him three times before at the last minute. 

“I received a confirmation this morning from their driver. They’ll have to leap out of the ship in order to avoid us.”

“I have the sneaking suspicion that they don’t like us,” he said dryly. 

The Noble House of Rhooni was nearly as prestigious as the House of Organa, and prided itself on its self-sufficiency from the other houses. This wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t also have substantial mining holdings in the Outer Rim, ones that they had been reluctant to divest. 

And Luke really,  _ really _ needed them to divest their holdings on Geonosis, otherwise the whole plan would fall apart. 

But at least this time they were coming to the meeting. He hoped. 

His hopes were rewarded: Lord and Lady Rhooni arrived precisely on time and in grand fashion, including a private secretary and bodyguards. Luke fought the urge to roll his eyes.

His face betrayed nothing. 

It had gotten easier with time. 

“Lord Rhooni, Lady Rhooni,” Luke said, greeting them in the most overwrought Alderaanian fashion: kisses to the hand and cheek for Lady Rhooni, and a respectful bow and salute to Lord Rhooni. How could anyone possibly  _ enjoy _ this? “So good of you to join us this morning. Tea?”

To his surprise, they accepted his offer of tea, which meant that they then had to go through  _ that _ whole ceremony of making the tea and serving the tea and  _ talking _ about the tea until Luke was ready to throw his cup at them. 

Just breathe. 

You can do anything if you’re calm enough.

“You’ve met my partner, Winter, of course,” he said, sparing everyone another round of introductions. The Lord and Lady exchanged what they must have thought was a private look of amusement; Luke knew what society pages were saying about  _ that, _ too.

“Of course,” Lord Rhooni said. “How good to see you. Now,” he said, with great condescension, “what kind of… service… can we offer you, your highness?”

“As you know,” Luke said, “we’ve begun a movement here on Alderaan to promote responsible investments. As the Empire is quelling the unrest in the Outer Rim territories, there are several industries that are… shall we say, riskier than others to invest in. It is our goal to persuade our larger financial institutions to divest their assets in some of the more volatile regions.”

“And how do you plan to do that?” Lord Rhooni asked. “Are you seeking support for regulatory legislation among the Planetary Council?”

“An ambitious idea,” said Lady Rhooni, “but perhaps one not feasible in the current political climate.”

Luke really hated the phrase “current political climate.” It seemed to describe both everything and nothing without actually saying anything of value. 

He shook his head. “Nothing quite so official. We’re hoping to gain some allies, yes, but in an unofficial capacity. By approaching the heads of some of our world’s most prominent Houses and making our case, we hope they might agree to demonstrate that it is possible to maintain a strong portfolio without those risky investments.”

He took a sip of his tea. “So, of course we came to you first.” Which was a complete lie, but he knew it would be an attractive proposition for the Rhoonis to be the first to publicly demonstrate their support for the initiative. 

Both Rhoonis looked at their private secretary. “Well, I’m unsure whether such a thing is possible right now,” Lady Rhooni admitted. “Our investments are quite complicated at the moment.”

The secretary nodded. “That is correct, my Lady. It would be difficult to disentangle many of our holdings without causing serious impairment to several local economies.”

Luke held up a calming hand. “No need to worry; no one is expecting anyone to divest all of their assets at once. But perhaps there are some that you could divest in the short-term, as a show of good faith?”

Winter picked up on her cue. “Your highness,” she said, leaning in to give her words the appearance of discretion, “I’ve just received word that our Mission on Geonosis will have to be postponed; there has been a recent slave uprising that the Imperial forces are in the process of quelling.”

Luke tapped a finger against his chin. “You’re right,” he said in a low tone. “We’ll have to postpone. It would be terrible optics, plus we wouldn’t be able to guarantee the safety of our staff at the moment.” Winter nodded and left the room. He looked back up at the Rhoonis. “My apologies. It was rude of me to interrupt, but the matter was urgent. We were to leave for Geonosis tomorrow, you see, and now we will have to find another method of promoting our work.”

The Rhoonis exchanged yet another amused smile. Yes, this was the dilettante they had heard so much about, concerned more with appearances than action. Someone after their own heart, Luke suspected. 

Lady Rhooni turned back to the private secretary. “Didea, do we have any holdings on Geonosis?”

The secretary checked her datapad. “Yes, my Lady… a small mining operation on the southern continent. It could be easily liquidated within a day or so.”

“Do it,” Lady Rhooni said, waving a hand at her. 

“I appreciate the sacrifice you have made,” Luke said. “It would be a great help to our cause.”

“Oh, think nothing of it,” said Lord Rhooni. “It would have gone down in value anyway; this will probably even save us some credits in the long run. Besides, slave-related enterprises never look good in the public eye.”

“Of course,” Luke agreed. As if the thought just occurred to him, he straightened up and asked, “Would you be willing to hold an event with us announcing the new initiative? Say… tomorrow?”

Lady Rhooni laughed. “Of course, my dear, of course. Let us check our calendar first, but I see no reason why a few things couldn’t be moved around, could they?” she asked her secretary. “We could make a real  _ event _ out of it.”

“Of course, my Lady,” her secretary replied promptly. “A gala could be arranged for tomorrow evening.”

“You are too kind,” Luke said, trying to slow them down. “But I think that a gala might be… a bit much, don’t you think?”

“Such a thing would be no trouble at all,” Lord Rhooni assured him. 

“We adore helping public causes wherever we can,” his wife added.

“Well…” Luke said, hesitating. “If you think it won’t be too extravagant…”

“Of course, of course!” Lady Rhooni said. “We’ll get right to it.”

“Thank you,” Luke said with a burst of gratitude. “The Mercy Mission appreciates your generosity… as do I.” 

The next twenty minutes were spent making arrangements, devising guest lists, and completing the arduous process of farewells. By the time they left, Luke was exhausted. 

Winter came back into his office. “Did it work?” she asked.

“Like a charm,” Luke said, slumping down into his chair. “They didn’t even hesitate.”

“And the other part too?”

“A whole gaudy gala tomorrow night, featuring everything but the Emperor himself. I might have a few grey hairs by the end of this ordeal, though.”

“I can’t believe that worked.”

“You need to have more faith in me, obviously,” he said with a grin. 

“Obviously. Any tea left?”

“Yes, though it’s probably cold.” 

“It should still do the trick,” she said. Easing herself down into the chair, she grabbed Luke’s empty mug and poured herself a cup of cold tea. “Any good news on the horizon?”

Luke slipped the device out of his desk drawer. “It’s a big horizon,” he replied. It was their agreed-upon phrase, though Winter still turned up her nose at the idea of code words. He switched it on.

The plan had been two-fold: once the Rhoonis divested their holdings on Geonosis, the mine would be purchased by a shell company funded by the foundation. The slaves that worked there would be quietly taken off-world and freed; some might even join the Rebellion. The mine would slowly, ever-so-gradually shut down as the shell company folded… and then the Rebels would move in. A neat, tidy way of providing a new Rebel base in the Outer Rim. 

Fortunately, there had been no actual Imperial repression, but it was only a matter of time, Luke’s contacts warned. Geonosis was about to be a figurative as well as a literal hotspot. 

The other part of the plan was an added bonus: a gala funded and hosted by the Rhoonis themselves. Luke had help to craft the guest list and ensured that several very specific names were on it: prominent Alderaanians who were on the verge of supporting the Rebellion, who just needed the slightest push. Bail would use the opportunity to pass messages along to off-world guests, getting information where it needed to go. 

Luke Organa smiled. It had been a good day.

* * *

That night, like so many other nights, he meditated. Under Bail’s guidance, he had learned how to make his thoughts like water: easy to navigate via a gentle touch, but hard as durasteel when under attack. 

This type of meditation, though, was just his own. He was outside of himself, traveling among the stars, feeling their energy flowing through him. 

He sometimes heard her voice. That girl who smelled of dust. 

“...we did a good thing today. We rescued those who needed to be rescued. Punished those who needed to be punished. And yes, there were some unexpected problems, but we dealt with them and finished the mission. I’m proud of you. All of you. I know what it’s like to keep secrets, to lead a double life, so I want you to remember what what we do… it matters. It’s worth the work we do, the risks we take, the sacrifices we make. And I’ll do whatever I can to make sure that it will always matter, no matter what...”

She wasn’t a Rebel, but he knew that they were the same.


	11. Attachments

Nothing was better evidence of Tatooine’s utter pointlessness than its ability to make a bike ride through its one of its most dangerous wastelands into a boring chore. 

Twin Suns had ops more often than not lately, but on the nights that they didn’t, she went to see Ben. 

“Would you believe me if I said I meditated on the way over?” Leia asked as she came in. 

“Not for a second,” he replied. 

“It’s not like there’s much else to  _ do _ ,” she grumbled, handing over the bag of supplies she had brought for him. Even with all of the poverty she had seen in Mos Eisley, it still horrified her when Ben told her that he had been living primarily on womp rats for the last seventeen years. She started bringing him food (“How about we call it tuition?” she told him).

“Have you eaten?” he asked.

“Sort of,” she said, sitting cross-legged on the floor, which was her usual posture for meditation. While in Mos Eisley buying supplies for Ben, she had run into Han and the two had had a quick meal together. “Though I wouldn’t call Chuluun’s snacks ‘food’ precisely.”

“You meditate; I’ll cook something,” Ben said. 

Leia sighed and closed her eyes, trying to clear her mind. She was good at compartmentalizing, about thinking about things later when she had the time, but it made meditating like moving through a shed full of boxes; she kept bumping into unexpected things. 

Or extremely expected things: it wasn’t surprising that her first thoughts went to the smuggler she was now associating with on a regular basis. She told herself initially that the drinks and meals were part of the deal: she humored him and let him flirt with her and buy her drinks, and he would keep helping smuggle freed slaves offworld without asking questions. 

But much to her growing annoyance, she was actually beginning to like him. Tonight, for example, was an unexpected occurrence, but once he let his guard down he was pretty good company. He had traveled extensively, including to a few worlds in the Core, and could tell stories with a vividness that had her hooked on the sound of his voice. Leia sometimes found herself shrieking with laughter over a description of some particularly larger-than-life fellow smuggler and Han’s adventures with them. 

“So then Lando-- and I swear this is true-- Lando actually manages to talk his way into the dockmaster’s quarters and swipe the datapad  _ back _ , plus he stole that ridiculous coat that Lenshi was always bragging about. Lenshi comes back to find not only is the  _ Falcon _ gone but his sister is now in love and refusing to marry the old fart he was trying to set her up with.”

Leia laughed. “I’m surprised Lando didn’t take her along too.”

“He might have, but he would have had to fess up to the  _ other  _ con we were pulling, which was getting that slicer droid into her brother’s bank account. She was a romantic but wouldn’t have been pleased to share her stuff.”

“Especially if she thought that ‘stuff’ included Lando himself, I bet.”

“Exactly. So meanwhile, Chewie and I are practically dragging that bucket of bolts over to the financial terminal--”

“Damn it,” Leia said suddenly. “I have to go.” To her surprise, she was actually going to miss the guy. 

“You sure? I was hoping to show you around the  _ Bria  _ tonight,” he said with an overly dramatic sigh.

“Well, that golden opportunity is just going to have to wait for another time,” she said, with a roll of the eyes. 

“Going anywhere interesting?”

“If you can believe it, I have to meet up with my tutor.”

He arched an eyebrow.

“See, I knew you wouldn’t believe it.”

“Well,” he said, rising up from the booth, “hopefully we’ll run into each other again, princess.”

“And you still call me that why, exactly?” she asked, standing. 

He grinned. “Because I still can’t quite grasp why a nice girl like you would be slumming it around here.”

“I told you, I’m a farm girl.”

“You don’t look like one.”

“And how many farm girls do you even know?”

He took her hand and gave it a kiss. “Wouldn’t you like to know,” he said, giving her a last wink. 

She headed for the door before she could start blushing again. 

“You’re not meditating, you’re ruminating,” Ben called from the corner where he was cooking. 

“Sorry,” she said. “It’s been a long day.” 

“Let it go and just breathe.”

Just breathe. 

Stretch out with your feelings. 

Feel the sand moving in currents under the wind. Feel the glowing points of living beings, weaving in a delicate dance of life on this harsh but beautiful world. Feel the haze of moisture in the air, barely perceptible to anything but the most calibrated of mechanisms. Feel the fastness of the stone around you. The heat of the suns, moving ever so slowly around one another, while this planet moved gently through space around it. 

Feel the twinges of hatred, the tendrils of love, the pride of work well done. Feel the pull of desperation, the emptiness of loss, the eruptions of joy. 

Feel the Force. Surrounding you. Binding the galaxy together into a complex but complete tapestry. 

“Dinner’s ready,” Ben said, drawing her awareness back into herself. Her legs felt a little stiff-- she must have been meditating for awhile. 

“Is it possible to sense other people through the Force?” Leia asked as they sat down to eat. 

“You know that already.”

“I mean, specific people. To find them through the Force.”

“Perhaps. It is difficult over distances and extremely difficult unless you know the person very well. Why?”

“Can you sense me when I’m on my way?” she asked. 

“I often don’t attempt it.”

“Why? What if I ran into trouble?”

Ben arched an eyebrow. “I am more than confident in your ability to handle yourself without my help.” 

“What’s the downside? You’re acting like there’s a downside here.”

He gave a slight frown. “Relying on the Force too much can be risky.”

“I mean, okay, so it builds character for me to carry stones instead of lifting them with my mind, but it’s a useful tool, you know?”

“The Force is not just a tool. And it’s not something that should be regarded as something you  _ use _ .”

“Why not?”

“To use,” he said, “is to imply that it belongs to you. The Force does not belong to you. Acting like it does… it would upset the balance.”

“And then what would happen? I’d fall to the dark side or something?”

“Well… yes. It’s a risk. The dark side offers the Force as something one can have dominion over. And once you believe you can control the very force of life itself--”

“-- you think you deserve to control everything else,” Leia finished. Sometimes Ben repeated himself. “You know I’m not after galactic domination or anything, right? I’m just trying to help my friends.”

Ben sighed sadly. “That can sometimes be the most dangerous risk of all. Jedi are cautioned to avoid attachments where possible. That’s why most Jedi begin training when very young, before those attachments can form.”

“That sounds awful,” Leia said. She imagined growing up without Biggs, or Camie… even without Owen and Beru. It sounded empty and cold. 

“Tell me,” Ben asked, setting down his spoon. “What would you do to save your friends if they were in danger?”

“Anything,” Leia responded automatically.

“Would you die for them?”

“Yes.”

“Would you kill for them?”

“Absolutely.”

“Would you commit other evil acts for them?”

“I know what you’re getting at, but I don’t see how that’s a bad thing exactly.”

“You have to understand,” Ben said, “those are the times when you will be tempted the most. Because it seems like the easiest answer. But in those moments, you’re not thinking, you’re letting your emotions have control. And it gets easier every time, until it’s not worth thinking about things anymore.”

“Isn’t this whole master/apprentice thing an attachment?”

Ben was silent for a time. “Yes,” he said finally. 

“Where did you go just then?” Leia asked him.

“I was thinking about my own master, back when I was an apprentice. About how his death was the first time I was ever truly tempted to the dark side.”

“What happened?”

“I’ve told you about the Sith, correct?”

“A little, yeah. Evil Force users, steeped in the dark side.”

“For most of my training, we thought the Sith had been eradicated,” he said. “We were wrong. There were two, in hiding… and one of them found us and confronted us. I had never had a battle like that before, with another Force user as strong as he was. I was a skilled duelist, but even between the two of us it was a close match. And then we were divided by a force field during the duel… and while I watched, helpless, he killed my master, Qui-Gon.”

“I’m… I’m so sorry,” Leia said. It was admittedly strange watching Ben describe this: he was sad, but detached at the same time. This is how you keep your emotions from having control, she thought to herself. 

She wasn’t sure if she wanted that. 

“And in that moment,” Ben continued, “I was consumed by my grief and hatred. I did not just want to defeat that Sith Lord… I wanted to  _ annihilate _ him. I wanted him to feel nothing but pain and suffering for as long as I could inflict it upon him. I knew he was beyond compassion, beyond reason, but for that moment I wanted nothing more than to cause him even more pain than I was feeling in that moment.”

“But you held back,” Leia guessed. 

“I knew that if I let my emotions rule my actions, I would betray every lesson Qui-Gon had taught me. It would make his death meaningless. Instead, I gave myself over completely to the Force, and it was like nothing I had experienced before: as though every motion, every  _ moment _ , was part of the balance of the universe. I knew I would defeat this Sith because that was how the balance would be maintained, and that my movements were part of that balance.”

“And you won,” Leia said. 

“Well, obviously,” Ben said, with a slight smile. “I’m here, am I not?”

Leia smiled. Then stopped. “I’m sorry about Qui-Gon.”

“His sacrifice was what saved me,” Ben said. “I grieved for him, but he made his choice and became one with the Force. As I one day hope to do.”

“Hopefully not in the same way,” Leia said with a shudder. “Are there still Sith out there?”

Ben nodded, solemnly. “Yes. But for now, let’s work on your blaster deflection skills.” He held up a blindfold in one hand and one of Cami’s small stun droids in the other. 

Leia sighed. This was going to  _ hurt _ . 

* * *

This part was going to hurt, too.

“I’m sorry,” she told Han the next time they encountered one another. “I know this is going somewhere… but it can’t. I’m not ready for this yet.”

Han looked puzzled. “This is the first time I think I’ve ever been dumped by someone I haven’t even started seeing yet.”

“What I’m doing now… I have to let go of attachments. And you’re an attachment… or you might be.” She blushed, mortified. “So I have to end this now. If you want to keep doing business together, fine, but no drinks, or dinners, or anything not strictly related to the matter at hand.”

Han stood up. He wasn’t angry, but was certainly agitated. “Fine,” he said finally. “You can deal with Chewie from now on, okay?”

Before she could answer, he had left the cantina. 

Her comm buzzed behind her ear. “We’ve got a new report in from Two,” Camie said in her earpiece. “Another shipment is going out in two days. This time in broad daylight.”

Leia swore. “One more complication, I guess. I’ll be in within an hour. Safehouse three. See you there.”

Ben might have warned her about attachments, but this was one she wasn’t planning to let go of.


	12. Gala

Galas, in Luke’s opinion, were completely pointless. A place for the wealthy and prominent to gather and show off just how wealthy and prominent they were. It felt like theater only the audience was made up of actors as well. Everything and everyone was tacky and nosy and far too close together.

Luke realized that one of the reasons why he liked racing so much was probably because it allowed him some measure of solitude and personal space. Unless he took Winter with him, but he didn’t mind her being so close. 

Don’t think about that right now. Think about it later. Or never. 

Which was exactly the point when Winter showed up, seemingly out of nowhere. “This might be a sign of how low on the social ladder my family is, but I don’t recognize half of these people.”

“Don’t worry, I don’t recognize them either,” Luke said. With the crush of people and music, he was practically shouting in her ear. “They must be people who the Rhoonis invited from off-world.”

“Or are they another batch of off-worlders?” she asked with a slightly raised eyebrow. 

“Maybe,” Luke mused. Bail had given him some names, and he had added them to the list and not asked questions. “Lots of military types, too.”

Winter looked around. “You’re right, and the ranks seem all off.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean they’re too low ranked to be invited to a shindig like this one.”

“Snob,” he teased.

“No, I mean that if they’re here, it means they’re on duty. Which means that a  _ very _ big name is here too.”

“Military too?”

“Probably; most civilians would have brought private security. No, this is some serious Imperial brass here tonight.”

“I don’t remember seeing anyone like that on the list,” Luke said, frowning.

“It was probably a late addition. Someone who happened to be coming from off-world and who the Rhoonis couldn’t avoid adding.”

“Or resist adding. Keep your eyes peeled. Let’s go mingle.”

“Same,” but before they could separate, a photographer intercepted them and took their picture together. 

“How about a kiss, you two?” she teased. Winter obliged by kissing Luke on the cheek as she snapped a photo. 

“This is embarrassing,” Luke grumbled. 

“Get used to it; you’re only a few years away from being Alderaan’s most eligible bachelor,” Winter said after the photographer moved on. 

“Gross.”

“Tell me about it.”

They parted ways. Luke was just going back to the bar for a second drink when he overheard a group of people talked animatedly. 

“...like something out of a holodrama, the Hutts are furious,” an older gentleman said, laughing. 

“Not that I’m complaining but doesn’t this sound like the sort of thing the local authorities would be dealing with?”

“Not very likely, Neda,” the first voice said. “Two crime syndicates taking turns flicking each others’ ears? The local Moff must be loving it.”

“If it’s Moff Wigand, he’s probably placing bets,” came a third voice. The group laughed uproariously. “Do Hutts even  _ have _ ears?”

Luke moved on, keeping his ears open. This season’s color was a vivid red, which meant that not only did the room make his eyes hurt as though he had been staring into the sun for too long, but he also (paradoxically) felt extremely conspicuous in his own vibrant attire. All he had been doing so far was talking with guests about the work that the foundation was doing and upcoming missions to the Outer Rim, and giving the same three anecdotes to people over and over again. He began cutting conversations short by claiming a need to find Winter, which typically prompted a brief round of teasing and blushing and Luke generally feeling foolish, but it did successfully end the conversation. 

He was at one point waylaid by the gentleman he had heard talking earlier. After a round of introductions, he learned that the gentleman’s name was Alteban Piko, a Corellian businessman who ran in some of the same social circles as the Rhoonis when they vacationed off-world; apparently Veltus IX was the new fashionable resort these days. 

“Hope you’ll forgive my saying so,” Piko said conspiratorially, “but it’s a damn shame that Rhooni’s giving up his holdings in Geonosis; it’s thrown my whole portfolio off.” Before Luke could answer, he explained further, “You see, I was expecting the production around that mining area to go up, therefore increasing the supply of the chodrium mined there, thereby decreasing its price, which I happened to be betting against. And here’s Rhooni doing the exact opposite thing and driving the price up!” He laughed. “Ah, well, you never can tell, can you?”

“I guess not,” Luke said, desperately trying to keep his face interested.

“But things on Geonosis are hard to predict even at the best of times,” Piko continued. He leaned in closer to Luke and said, a little more enunciated than before, “especially when new folks move into the neighborhood, eh?”

Luke nodded. So not just a friend of the Rhoonis’: an offworld contact. “Indeed,” he replied. “We’re trying to get back to Geonosis on a mission once things have settled down a little bit.”

“Ah yes, these missions of yours,” Piko said. “Tell me, can a fellow come along on one of these?”

“I’m afraid not,” Luke said apologetically. “One of our commitments is to keeping our overhead reasonably low; we try only to send people who can do the most good. No offense intended, of course.”

“None taken, none taken!” Piko said, laughing. “Well, I would still love to have something to offer the cause, as it were.”

“Well, you’re at the right place, then,” Luke said. “We’d love any help you might be willing to provide.”

“Well, here is the number for my private secretary,” he said, passing Luke a card. “We’ll speak later this week, eh?”

“Thank you,” Luke said. “I should go find my associate, actually, and make sure she has this. I lose things really easily, unfortunately.” He gave a rueful smile.

Piko laughed. “I’ve seen that associate of yours-- just make sure not to go losing  _ her _ , all right?”

Luke gave a tired smile and went to find Winter. 

“Finally, some good news,” she sighed. “All I’ve been listening to is the Rhoonis complaining about the Mon Calamari shipyard industry and using some very ugly language in describing them.”

“I should have known the Rhoonis would be viciously pro-human,” Luke said with a matching sigh. “I guess we’ll need to contact this person tomorrow.” 

“Wait,” she said, quietly, examining the card Luke had handed her. “This isn’t Piko’s private secretary… this is the name of a guest here tonight. And look, there’s a datachip embedded in it.” She looked up at Luke. “I think we’ve just been drafted as messengers.”

“Do you know what this person looks like?”

“No, we’ll have to ask around, I think,” she deposited the card into her handbag and gave Luke a nod as she headed away from him. 

Luke had only been mingling for another few minutes when Winter was back beside him, her face as white as her hair. 

“What is it?” he asked her as quietly as he could, moving away from the conversation he was listening in on. 

“We’re in trouble.”

“How?”

“It’s not just your standard Imperial admiral here tonight.”

“Who is it?”

“It’s  _ Grand Moff Tarkin _ himself.”

“Wow,” Luke said. Then narrowed his eyes. “That’s big news, but I don’t know how we’re in trouble.”

“Because I’ve heard about his entourage. Imperial Intelligence officers. Look at how many of them there are.” 

Luke looked and he felt his stomach drop. “Over a dozen. And we’ve been making connections under their noses all night.”

“Worse; I was a little indiscreet.”

“How?” Luke asked.

“I was talking with the person on the card, trying to pass it over to them… and I dropped it.”

“And?”

“And the intelligence officer picked it up.”

“Oh no.” 

“I don’t know what was on the chip, but I don’t think it was anything innocuous.”

They heard a commotion from the other side of the room. Luke grabbed Winter’s arm. “We need to go,” he said, beginning to head, as quickly as possible without drawing notice, toward the kitchen doors. 

“They have officers posted at those doors,” she said, shrugging his arm off.

“Upstairs, then,” he said. As they took the stairs (for the Rhoonis, like many Alderaanian houses, kept their turbolifts out of sight), they noticed Piko being approached by a pair of intelligence officers. “What are we going to do?” he whispered as they hid in the nearest bedroom.

“I… I don’t know,” Winter said softly. “Luke… I think we should go back downstairs.”

“What do you mean? We need to get out of here. We need to find an exit--”

“No. No, Luke, this is over.”

“What are you talking about?”

“We’re going to get caught.”

“That’s not true. We can get out of here.”

“Piko’s going to give us up. If we run then it’s just going to go worse for us,” she said. She looked deflated. “Sometimes you just have to cut your losses and salvage what you can--”

“Winter, no--”

“I’m afraid, Luke!” she said, some energy returning to her. “If we get caught and interrogated… I could give everything away--”

“No, that’s not true!” Luke let out an exhale of anger. Then took her by the hand. “We’re going to go. Now.” All of him seemed to be shaking in terror.

She didn’t resist. As they went down the hall, he could hear her crying softly. 

The Force must have been with them, because no one stopped them on their way out the back door and to their landspeeder. 

No one ever came after them, not even weeks later, but Luke couldn’t shake the feeling that they were always being watched. He had to be more careful now than ever. 

Even after all this time, Winter was still as subdued and distant as she had been at the end of the gala. There was no more bantering like there used to be. At the foundation, she spoke to him like he was her supervisor, nothing more. It was upsetting and hurt Luke in a place he had never felt before, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask her what was wrong. He had thought it would come out in time, but it never did.

“I need you to take my place on the Geonosis mission,” Winter told him. 

“But that’s tomorrow,” he said. Then frowned. “Are you okay?”

“I will be leaving Alderaan for awhile,” she said. “You’ll have to delegate some of my other work, but I’ve left extensive documentation as to my duties. Binette can take over your daily briefings.”

“No,” Luke said, “I mean, are you  _ okay _ ?”

She closed her eyes for a moment. Then continued, calmly. “This… whatever this is. Or was going to be. Between us. It isn’t working. It has to end, so I’m ending it.”

“What do you mean?” Luke asked. 

“Just let me leave,” she said. 

“Let you?”

“I’ll be keeping my distance from the Imperials, don’t worry. Your secrets will still be safe.”

“I don’t understand,” Luke said, desperately. 

“It’s not my responsibility to make you understand, Luke. That’s up to you.” There was a note of something creeping into her words. Anger? Disappointment? 

Fear?

“Good luck, Luke,” she said. And then was gone.


End file.
